A look at the Chorti, Poton Lenca, and Pipil peoples of El Salvador, birthplace of Mesoamerican civilizations, as well as recognizing the indigenous spirit in the struggle for social justice today.

Olmec

12/06/2015

Just as the Maya suffered through a terrible tsunami at Lago Güija in about 7835 BCE, all the Maya lineages, especially the Ik’ lineage, suffered tremendously due to an ocean tsunami more than 500 years later, in about 7280 BCE. But they weren’t the only ones to suffer – place names on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts throughout the Americas indicate being hit by a terrible tsunami too.[1] The Maya determined the cause of the tsunami, which is revealed by the name of the mythological figure Sihuehuet: the Great Lakes region of the present-day U.S. and Canada. This chapter will look somewhat briefly at the cause of the disaster in the Great Lakes area, then examine the impact on Maya communities, especially the displacement of the leaders of the Ik’ lineage from the Rio Lempa to Oaxaca.

The most likely cause of the tsunami was the draining of Lake Agassiz, a huge lake on the North American continent – mostly in Canada – which emptied much of its huge volume of glacial melt into the oceans. But it wasn’t that simple. The lake shore had many communities along its rim. The draining of the lake was a very violent thing.

The lake was likely somewhat smaller at the time of the tsunami than what is portrayed above.[2] Place names around Fargo indicate that the lake may have been 15 to 20 miles wide by Fargo rather than the roughly 50 miles indicated on the map. Scientists estimate that Lake Agassiz began to form in about 10875 BCE when the ice sheets began to melt.[3] It lasted until about 6480 BCE, leaving behind remnant lakes like Lake Winnipeg. Scientists have determined that it reached its largest size during the fourth of its five stages, the Nipigon, from about 8630 BCE until about 7160 BCE,[4] when a large amount of water drained from the Lake.

The 7160 BCE date comes quite close to the date in the Maya Mars retrograde calendar that seems to correspond with the tsunami (7280 BCE). The name Nipigon comes from Lake Nipigon, a large lake north of Lake Superior. During the fourth stage of Lake Agassiz, it reached Lake Nipigon, which has an elevation of 260 meters (850 feet), 14 meters below Fargo. Nipigon is a name in Mi which comes from the time of the tsunami. In Mi it is ni pi ik’ k’o on and means “companions in the biting wind from the knob of the previous age.” The biting knob was the ice slab which slammed into Lake Agassiz near Fargo, making it clear that Lake Nipigon was named after the source of the wind was learned. The “previous age” was the ice age.

The Algonquin peoples that lived around Lake Agassiz at the time still spoke Mi at the time of the tsunami.[5] Place names around the lake spell out the cause of the tsunami. Cass County, where Fargo, North Dakota, is located, is k’as in Mi, meaning “broke open” or “broke away.” Fifty kilometers west of Fargo are the towns of Absaraka and Buffalo. Absaraka is ab sar ak’ ka and means “beginning of the swinging wall of the covering,” where covering refers to a piece of the ice sheet which may have been centered around Devils Lake. Buffalo is buh bah al lo in Mi and means “time of cut up bodies from the loose one.”[6] The name Fargo likely was named after a European, but it also could be indigenous: bah ar k’o means “time of the bodies in the teeth,” with teeth referring to the sliding ice sheet.

[5] Research by this author indicates that the Algonquin were, in part, the result of a migration of the Maya from the region of present-day El Salvador to the Great Lakes region in about 7430 BCE, less than 300 years before the tsunami.[6] Buffalo repeats the usage of this name for an ice berg or ice sheet, first used by the Sioux ancestors on the Mississippi River in modern day Wisconsin. At other times it was also used to describe the bison. While it was Algonquin further north along the edges of Lake Agassiz, in present-day North Dakota it was likely Dakota.

The name Norman, the Minnesota county 50 kilometers northeast of Fargo, indicates that the tsunami resulted from an ice sheet. It is noh hor mah an in Mi and means “large crest from the bad flow,” with ma in the name indicating deaths. Manitoba is ma an ni to ba and means “sacrifice of bodies in the bad flow due to the knob (ice slab).” Anola is a place name 24 kilometers east of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Anola is an no hol ha’ and means “large flowing crest of water,” indicating a lake tsunami as it flowed north in the lake. The tsunami slammed into the north rim of Lake Agassiz, breaking through at the present opening of Nelson River near Purvis Island, pur bi is, which means “companions in the up and down movement.”

A large flow of water poured out of Lake Agassiz toward James Bay. There were several villages around the bay at the time, evidenced by the place names, which indicate a tsunami there too.[7] For example, Akimiski Island is ak’ ki im mi is kib and means “tender cats covered by the rising, blasting motion.” From there the large flow of water from Lake Agassiz entered the Atlantic Ocean, where it caused an ocean-wide tsunami. Names throughout present-day Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and Dominican Republic indicate a tsunami. The same is true of present-day coastal Venezuela and Brasil. Because it was a flow of a significant amount of new water, the tsunami maintained itself and possibly strengthened as it passed the tip of South America and entered the Pacific Ocean. Names on the west coast of South America and Panama clearly indicate a tsunami. Then the tsunami reached the coast of present-day El Salvador, home to the Maya in 7280 BCE.

[7] While it is possible they were Algonquin, the language seems distinct and more likely to be Eskimo-Mi.

The Tsunami in El Salvador

The names along the coast of current-day El Salvador indicate that there was population on the coast – and therefore tsunami-relevant names – at the time of the tsunami. Conversely, there are no tsunami-relevant Pacific Coast names between Panama and El Salvador and few in Guatemala and Mexico. In the case of the region of El Salvador, I will start by looking at the eastern part of the coast, then the western portion, and finally the central area, where the tsunami had the biggest social and cultural impact.

During the presence of Xibalba, the Olmeka/Lenca ancestors would have been mostly limited to Lago Olomega in eastern El Salvador. The Xibalba were eliminated about 200 years before the tsunami and in that time, it appears that the Olmeka people spread out along the coast, 20 to 30 kilometers away. A similar process happened in the west. The department and city name, La Union, might have originally been a Mi name, then adapted into Spanish. It could have been la an yur ri on, meaning “formerly fatigued current beside breaking through.” Historically, the Gulf of Fonseca was called “fatigued current,” so calling it “formerly fatigued” may have been a play on words referring to the tsunami. Cutuco is a place name a couple kilometers east of the modern city of La Union. It is kut tu uk’ k’o and means “sadness for the corpses from the beating teeth.”

The most prominent name around la Bahía de La Unión is Sirama, with two rivers of that name and a village. There is a Sirama River just north of the bay, also called Rio el Amatillo, which drains into Estero Manzanilla, a Sirama River southwest of the bay, which starts near El Pilón, and a Sirama village located about 10 kilometers west of La Unión. Sirama must have really garnered the feeling of the communities after the tsunami. In Mi, it is sir ra am ha or “spiders in the rising tired water.” They self-identified as spiders – sailing people. “Tired water” was a reference to the Gulf of Fonseca. A second similar meaning for Sirama is “see a number of spiders in the water.” Ending in ma, the name also connotes badness and death.

Rio Pavana drains into Rio Sirama (Amatillo), Pavana is pah ab an ha’ and means “bodies in the swinging water current.” Mogotillo is a village located next to Rio Pavana, about five kilometers from the bay. It is mo’ ok’ k’o ti il lo’ and means “see loose ones trapped and split open from the teeth by the mouth.” The teeth are the giant tsunami waves.

Further to the west and away from the bay, at San Alejo the focus was on healing the survivors. San Alejo is one of many examples where Mi names were transformed into Spanish names, often beginning with “san.” San means “swelling” in Mi. San Alejo is san al leb bo’ and means “time of stroking (healing) those from the swollen hole.” Hole is one of the words used frequently for ocean. El Jicaro is eight kilometers east of El Carmen and would be hi’ ik’ k’ar ro’ or “retained loose sand from the wind.” This is a key name and the first of many in the El Salvador region that indicate that the winds that accompanied the tsunami blew up sand that became retained under the skin of survivors. Five kilometers south of El Jicaro, up in the hills safe from any tsunami, is the village of El Pilon. This might be a Spanish name, but it could be Mi, coming from pi il lo’ on or “see the previously loose companions” – those loose in the wave but who survived and then relocated away from the ocean and bay.

To the southeast of La Union is Amapalita, an obvious reference to Amapala on Isla Tigre. It means “remnant beside Amapala,” indicating that people either floated across from Isla Tigre or moved to the mainland due to the destruction from the tsunami. The nearby town and volcano of Conchagua have a similar meaning, it is k’o on ch’a’ ak’ wa’ in Mi and means “beings previously covered and horizontal from the teeth,” likely referring to people who previously lived on Isla Tigre or other islands in the Gulf. Conchagua has a double meaning of “two” which seems to refer to there being a second group from Isla Tigre. The name of another nearby village, Yologual, provides more information. It is yo’l lo’ ok’ wa’ al and means “the time of splitting off of the beings who were loose in the perforation.” This indicates that they were loose in the gulf, floating to the mainland. Splitting off probably means both “split open” and is an expression when one family, clan, etc. is split in two, indicating that some of their people remained on Isla Tigre. They could easily have returned but probably interpreted their situation as fate, they were meant to stay in Conchagua.

Playa el Flor, south of Conchagua volcano, might be from Mi, pel lo’ hor, meaning “loose ones collapsed in the crest.” Near where the gulf meets the Pacific is Playa Tamarindo. This appears to come from Mi and perhaps the plant was then named after this place. Tamarindo in Mi is ta’ am mar ri in toh and means “remnant spiders from the sea beside where the first sacrifice.” This indicates that there was a second group from Isla Tigre that floated from the island, where the first heart sacrifices took place as described in Chapter 3. Those that floated to Tamarindo were sailors – very adept in the water. The point, Punta Amapala, named after Amapala, Isla Tigre, is further evidence of a group floating from Tigre. That the people floated west indicates that the tsunami took place in the rainy season from May 1 to October 31 when the wind and ocean currents go west along the coast.

Further west in current day San Miguel, is Playa el Cuco and San Jose Gualozo. Cuco might come from the time of the tsunami. It could be kur uk’ k’o, meaning “sadness from the points and teeth.” Gualozo is wa’al lo os soh and means “loose ones set down by the standing curve (wave).” This would seem to indicate that bodies or persons were carried up to Gualozo, about five kilometers inland, by the wave.

A little bit east, Isla el Arco might be a Spanish name, but if indigenous, it would be ar k’o or “time of the teeth.” Nearby is Isla Espino – again, possibly a Spanish name, but in Mi it would be etz’ pi noh or “observe the companions in the large one.”

The water from the tsunami crest backed up the Rio Grande de San Miguel, the major river in eastern El Salvador. Moropala, about 15 kilometers upstream, is moh hor ro bah al ha’ or “the time of loose bodies trapped in the water’s crest.” It has a double meaning of boats, indicating that boats were also trapped and lost in the current. Across the river from Moropala is La Anchila, which in Mi is an ch’i’ il ha’ or “see the large water current.” Chilanguera, about 30 kilometers upstream, and the name indicates the current went at least that high. In Mi it is ch’i’ il an k’er ha’ and means “see the large gashing water current.” Today Chilanguera is 35 meters (115 feet) above sea level. The name Talpetate, present up one of the narrow canyons from Chilanguera, may indicate that the flow of the tsunami reached that high – as flood waters were forced up the narrow valley. It located 200 meters above level – which at the time may have been the equivalent of 180 meters above sea level.[8]

[8] The crest of the wave would not need to be that high but the wave could force water much higher than the crest up a narrow valley.

Maya communities existed in ~7280 BCE along much of the present-day El Salvador coast, including in the west. Communities located in today’s La Libertad Department probably were linked to Lago Guija. The last chapter described the historical connection between Lago Guija and La Libertad following the Guija flood.

The name La Libertad may come from Mi from the time of the tsunami. In Mi it would be li ib ber ta’ at or “beside the remains of the spirits collapsed in the bath.” Rio Aquiquisquillo in eastern La Libertad is ak’ ik’ ix ki’ il lo’ or “see the tender ones loose in the covering movement and wind”. Above Aquiquisquillo is the municipality of Rosario de Mora in today’s San Salvador Department. It might be from Spanish, but probably comes from Mi: ro’ os sar ri ho’ ot te’ em moh or ha’, which means “shelter for those beside, the desirable ones trapped loose in the crest of the wall of water, set down in the trees in the descent.” This indicates that the survivors may have sought shelter up the hill in Rosario de Mosa.

Rio Chilama is just east of Puerto La Libertad. Chilama is ch’i’ il am ha’, which means “see the spiders (sailors) in the large water,” with “badness” (death) as a double meaning. Just west of the mouth of Chilama is Playa Conchalio, which is k’o on cha al li ho in Mi, meaning “the time in the two teeth, the desired ones previously beside.” This name suggests that there were two waves in the tsunami. This area of La Libertad may be where one of the groups that made it to Mexico were from: most likely the Mangue/Chorotega.

Beyond the beach ten kilometers up the coastal range is La Shila or ch’i’ il ha’, simply “see the giant water.” A couple kilometers west of Conchalio is El Sunzal. In Mi it is suh un sal or “youth under the layer of the wall,” with a double meaning of “foreigner.” This is one indicator that the Maya believed the tsunami came from elsewhere – across the ocean or perhaps when Sunzal was named they had learned of the North American origin.

Near the coast the name El Zonte describes trees that were completely covered up by the tsunami. El Zonte is soh on te’, meaning “trees previously in the curve (wave).” Far above El Zonte is the municipality of Tamanique which describes a very common condition of those near the ocean. The very strong tsunami wind blowing sand into the skin. Tamanique is tam an ni ik’ k’er and means “in the current for the interior of the bumps from the gashing wind.” To relieve their painful skin they rested in the Rio Huiza. A little west is Siberia or si ib ber ri ha’, which means “beside the many collapsed spirits in the water (ocean).”

The collapsed spirits in the tsunami included a shaman or spiritual leader, according to the meaning of the nearby municipality of Chiltiupan and the Rio Sunzacuapa. Sunzacuapa is sun sahk uh ha’ pah and means “search for the body of the sacred one in the greedy (foreign) water.” Chiltiupan is ch’i’ il ti uh pah an and indicates that the body of the sacred one was found. It means “see the opened body of the sacred one in/from the giant current.” Perhaps the sacred one and others lived near the present-day town of Taquillo near the coast. It is ta’ ak’ ki’ il lo’ and means “see the remains of the loose covered-up tender ones.”

Like Tamanique, Jicalapa refers to the sand flying penetrating the skin with the strong winds. Jicalapa is hi’ ik’ k’al ha’ pah in Mi and means “in the river for sand from the wind retained in the body.” This meaning is extremely clear.

In far western La Libertad and Sonsonate are several coastal villages that appear to be from the K’iche’ lineage at Lago Coatepeque rather than the Ch’orti’ lineage. Mizata, or mi is sat ha’ or “cats lost in the movement of water.” Next to Mizata, in present day eastern Sonsonate, is Apancoyo and Playa Dorada. Apancoyo is ap pa an k’oy yor, meaning “swinging bodies of the smokers hit by the current.” The K’iche’ lineage is known for first cultivating tobacco. “Pan” is used in the name, linking it both to Teopan and to the Tlapanec in Mexico. Finally there is Playa Dorada, which is to or at ta’ or “remains of those sacrificed by the crest of the bath.” The name of the Department of Sonsonate comes from the time of the tsunami. It is so on so on at te and means “previously on the arched wood who previously were at the curved bath.” Curved bath refers to Lake Coatepeque, long-time home of the K’iche’. Arched wood refers to the boats they used to sail in the ocean. A double-meaning of Sonsonate is “distant”, hinting that the name originated after they were aware of the landing of the survivors in Guerrero.

In western Sonsonate is a curious repeating of the name Amatal, the beach where the first families arrived from South America about 80 kilometers to the east (see Chapter 2). In this context it appears to be am ma at ta’ al and mean, “the time of the remains of the spiders (sailors) in the bad bath.” I take the repeated name to be likening the death(s) in the ocean among the first families to the many deaths in the ocean at the time of the tsunami.

Further west in today’s Ahuachapan is Barra de Santiago, the first of many examples where names begin with the syllable “san” and the Spanish claimed them, in most cases, to be saints’ names. In Mi, Santiago is san at ti ak’ k’o (Sanatiago) and means “in the bath for swollen open bumps on skin from the teeth.” San means “swollen” and was usually used as a prefix to describe the bumps from the sand in the skin.

Finally, the Garita Palmera lagoon name seems to date from this time. Garita Palmera is k’ar ri ta’ ap pah al mer ha’ and means “time of being beside the remains of the failed bodies in the swinging water,” with “boats” as a double meaning. It is likely that the community at Garita Palmera was related to the Ch’orti’ community at Lago Güija, serving as one of the primary sailing communities of the Ch’orti’. As we will see, many of the Garita Palmera community survived.

The Origin of the Zapotec

Perhaps the most important story from the tsunami in Mesoamerica took place in the central part of present-day El Salvador in the regions of Usulutan, San Vicente, and La Paz. This event resulted in the creation of a new ethnic group in Mexico, when the leadership portion of the Ik’ lineage communities survived the tsunami blast but were carried out to sea, landing eventually at the Oaxaca coast. Other surviving groups carried out to sea did not include the core leadership of their respective lineages.

Two stories were told about the Balam Ik’ leadership getting swept to Oaxaca: one by the survivors who stayed along the coast and other Maya who searched for their lost Balam Ik’ lineage who lived by the ocean, and the second by the survivors of the tsunami who floated to the shores of Oaxaca. The place names on both sides of the lower Lempa River tell the story from the perspective of the Maya. On the east side of the Lempa (Usulután), the story starts near the coast at Salinas de Sisiguayo, a place where salt is made. Sisiguayo is si ix sik’ wa’ yo’b and means “search for the series of beings struck by the arriving movement.” This describes where they may have searched for the missing people. “Arriving movement” is an apt description of a tsunami-type wave. Sisiguayo has a complete double meaning – sis si ik’ way yor – or “series of cold wind gusts hit while sleeping,” indicating a possible warning before the tsunami, which apparently hit at night. A third meaning is “Ik’ beings.”

A few kilometers northwest of Sisiguayo is El Zamoran, which is tz’ah am mo hor an and means “spiders trapped by the cresting shiny current.” Spiders was a common expression for sailors, going back to Taiwan and Siberia in Chapter 1. “Shiny” was an expression for various bodies of water.” The Ik’ lineage on the Pacific Coast were sailors in the ocean. Recently the ancient bones of a woman and a child were excavated at Zamoran.[9] Perhaps they are from the time of the flood.

Along the Usulutan coast are San Juan del Gozo and Isla Cumichin. Cumichin, a kilometer south of Sisiguayo, is k’um mi ix ch’i’ in and means “first cats (of us) rinsed in the large movement.” The tsunami struck there before Sisiguayo. San Juan del Gozo is a village five kilometers west of Cumichin. The whole name appears to come from Mi: san wa’an tel k’o soh, meaning “teeth of the swollen rising curve on the ridge.” It has a double meaning of “running beings set down.”

To west along the La Paz coast are El Chingo and El Pimiental, indicating that the Ik’ lineage spread out in this direction as well. El Chingo is ch’i’ in k’o and simply means “first ones in the large teeth.” El Pimiental is pi im men ta’ al and means “time of the spirit-remains of the companions in the blast.” It has a double meaning of “arrival.”

A few kilometers north of El Zamoran is the oddly named Quita Calzon. I believe that a similar sounding Maya name was replaced with the two odd Spanish words. Quita Calzon or kitakalison in Ch’orti’-Mi is ki’ ta’ ak’ k’al li ix soh on and means “beside where dear ones previously set down by the arch, remnant with retentions in the skin.” It is a name that recognizes those whose bodies were carried by the wave and set down upshore here, as well as discussing the problem of the sand embedded (retained) in the skin. In a similar way, Mata de Piña received its name, a few kilometers north of Quita Calzon. Mata de Piña is mah ta’ pi in ha’ and means “remains of the first companions in the bad water.” The water was described as bad because it had caused the deaths of the first companions.

The bay in Usulutan also has a name that dates to the time of the flood. Jiquilisco is ji’ ik’ ki’ il li ix k’o and means “see the movement of biting sand in the wind beside the tender ones.” It was a location from which a survivor(s), perhaps higher up from the ocean level, saw and felt the sand in the wind generated by the tsunami wave(s). They were beside those who passed away – the tender ones.

On the west side of the Lempa (present-day San Vicente), the story starts with La Pita, near the present small port on the Lempa used to access Isla Montecristo and the Pacific. La Pita is lappi ta’ and means “rubbing remains of the companions,” where “rubbing” was an expression for caring for the bodies of those who had passed. La Pita has a second meaning indicating that people moved back there: “remnant of the rubbing (stroking) companions,” referring to ocean paddlers. Montecristo, at the mouth of the present-day Lempa, might come from Mi: Montekeristo would be moh on te’ ek’ k’er ri ix toh and means “ancestors on the broken wood under the stars beside those sacrificed while trapped in the movement.” The ancestors on the broken wood are those that floated to Mexico, indicating that this name came after there was contact between those in Oaxaca and those here. If Montekeristo is a name from the time of tsunami it likely referred to an island near the mouth of the river at that time rather than the precise island that is today called Monte Cristo.

A little north of La Pita is the town of Santa Marta, which is san tam mar ta’ and means “remains in the depth of the swollen sea.” The next town north of Santa Marta is San Bartolo. Its name – Sanabaratolo, also derives from Mi and is san ab ba ar at toh lo’, which means “time of the sacrificed bodies in the swinging swollen bath.” Double meanings here include “boats” and “forgotten ones.”

Ojushtada, a more obviously Maya name, is one kilometer north of San Bartolo. Ojushtada is ho’ huch’ ta’ at ha’ and means “the remains of the nice ones pressed by the water bath.” While many Ch’orti’-Mi names have two, three or more meanings, Ojushtada is constructed in such a way that there is no other possible meaning for this name.

The present-day city names Tecoluca and Zacatecoluca describe the sentiment of the Maya who remained. They were named at a time after the Ik’-lineage surviving leaders were located in Mexico. Tecoluca is te’ ek’ k’ol uk’ ha’ and means “water transport on branches by the stars in sadness,” describing the journey of those who floated to Mexico. The theme of being under the stars in the ocean is repeated in El Salvador and Oaxaca. This name brings up two historical references, both described in Chapter 2. First, it was the Ik’ lineage that was especially adept at navigating by the stars on the original journey from South America to the El Salvador coast, about 1,400 years before the tsunami. Second, it sounds similar to Toluca beach, where the original four rafts landed. Zacatecoluca is sak’ k’at tecoluca or “search for those who crossed, Tecoluca,” indicating that the Maya sent search parties out into the ocean to look for the survivors, eventually finding them in Mexico.

The name Talpetate describes the extent of the flow of the tsunami wave – no doubt reaching elevations higher than the height of the wave itself, especially as it flowed up steep river valleys. Talpetate is tal pet ta at te and means “arrival of a residual of the pouring of the bath on vegetation.” In contemporary Salvadoran parlance, talpetate means a subsoil layer of clay and sand.[10] The wave brought sand and soon the word meant any place of sandy-clay soil, an indicator that at some much earlier time the ocean covered a portion (or all) of Central America. There are at least 12 occurrences of Talpetate.[11] They occur only in areas that are indicated by this research would be occupied at the time of the flood – there are none in Mexico, Belize, or northern or western Guatemala.

[10] Personal conversation, Rolando Velo, November 13, 2015.[11] 11 indicated by maplandia.com and a 12th located in Usulutan, El Salvador by the author.

Two of the Talpetate name placements have equivalent elevations – 100 meters – likely indicating the height of the tsunami, although the ocean level was perhaps 17 to 20 meters higher at that time in Central America.[12] This would indicate a 61 to 80 meter tsunami (200 to 262 feet). These two places are Talpetate, Usulutan, El Salvador, and Talpetate, El Viejo, Chinandega, Nicaragua. Two other Talpetate place names have a lower elevation, likely indicating other places where the tsunami dumped sand once it had receded. A fifth Talpetate, in San Miguel, El Salvador, has an elevation of 200 meters. However it is in a narrow river valley and could indicate that tsunami swell reached that height as water was pushed up the narrow valleys.

[12] The 8670 BCE sailing stones at Toluca are 17 meters above sea level today. The rising continental shelf has dropped the ocean level to its current level. However, there may have been a counter force of a rising ocean from 8670 to 7270 BCE due to melting ice sheets worldwide.

Next, in the next blog entry, we will look at those who somehow survived this giant tsunami and floated under the stars to Mexico.

01/05/2014

Three of the most important concepts for the founding of the Mexican people are Teotihuacan, Chicomoztoc, and Aztlan. In the case of Teotihuacan it is not just a concept but also a site with structures. What the first two have in common is a cave motif. At Teotihuacan there is a human-made cave under the Pyramid of the Sun. The Chicomoztoc theoretical cave is a place of origin for most of the peoples of central and northern Mexico. Aztlan is the almost mythical homeland of the Aztec (Mexica).

The Pyramid of the Sun cave at Teotihuacan has four chambers while in the legend the Chicomoztoc cave has seven. The Teotihuacan cave probably came first and is an attempt to hark back to the four founding families of the Mesoamerica who arrived on four boats from South America in about 8680 BCE. On the other hand, the Chicomoztoc cave speaks to the seven specific ethnic groups who eventually populated Teotihuacan and who created a language new to them all, called Nahuat or Nahuatl.

The four lineages represented as founders at the Pyramid of the Sun are Ak'bar, Ik', K'inche (Kitze), and Maix (Majukutaj). The name Teotihuacan also speaks to this same mix of founding lineages, with Teo representing the three Maya-related lineages, and Tihuacan representing the Ik' (Zapotec) lineage, named after their first sacred site in El Salvador, Tehuacan, meaning "island of learning."

The seven cave chambers of Chicomoztoc represent the seven ethnic groups who came to populate Teotihuacan, rather than the founders, and who came to form central Mexican culture, including the Nahuat language. These ethnic groups were Totonac and Huasteca from the Ak'bar (Chol-Ch'orti') lineage, the Zapotec and Otomi from the Ik' lineage, the Quiche (including the Cakchiquel, etc.) from the K'inche lineage, and the Olmeka (Mexica) and Purepecha from the Maix lineage.

The Totonac were among the closest to Mexico's central valley, coming from directly east, and probably one of the strongest groups at Teotihuacan. The Huasteca came from much further north up the Gulf Coast and were likely a minor group in the central valley. The Zapotec came from Oaxaca, quite a distance, yet there is strong Zapotec influence at Teotihuacan. It could be that those that went to the central valley became the Mixteca. Mixteca means "beginning of the expansion of the cats" in Ch'orti'. The Otomi-Pame are cousins of the Zapotec and didn't have much pre-Classic presence but they were located in the Puebla area, near to the central valley.

The Quiche included the Cakchiquel and other sub-lineages and may have been the largest contingent at Teotihuacan. They would have come from the northwest coast of Mexico where they lived due to their pellagra banishment. The Olmeka sent a migration group the Valley of Mexico soon after their arrival to the Veracruz Coast. This migration group became the Mexica and they joined the Teotihuacan formation. The Purepecha were cousins of the Olmeka and lived relatively close to the central valley in northern Michoacan and southern Guanajuato. The lead four lineages would likely have been the Totonac, the Zapotec, the Quiche, and the Olmeka/Mexica, one from each of the four founding Mesoamerican lineages.

The Chicomoztoc cave shows seven chambers with a group of people in each who smoke a peace pipe and then join together to populate Teotihuacan. Whether speaking of the four founding lineages of Teotihuacan or the seven Central Mexican ethnicities, they had to find a common cultural icon to form their union. This means they had to go back before 7000 BCE when the Zapotec and Otomi moved from El Salvador to Mexico. The main choices would have been the Corinto cave and the sight of the rising triple planets of 8208 BCE on Isla Tigre. The earliest symbols of Teotihuacan contain both of these cultural touch points.

None of the Mesoamerican people were cave dwellers - they lived out in the open. Using a cave as their founding symbol can only mean the Corinto cave in northeast El Salvador. This cave figured most prominently when, only days into Mesoamerica, the four founding families were captured by hunters they later called Xibalba, and taken to Corinto cave. Soon they escaped and ran toward the Lempa River. Later the cave was the scene of astronomical contests and battles. Eventually, by way of cunning, the Xibalba were defeated. Corinto cave was a place of bondage, a place of contest, a place of triumph, and the ultimate bonding between the four founding families. The caves of the Pyramid of the Sun and Chicomoztoc carry this symbolism.

All seven ethnic groups at Teotihuacan left or were forced out of El Salvador by the lead Ch'orti' lineage. For the Huasteca, Totonac, Quiche, Olmeka-Mexica, and Purepecha the reason was the pellagra crisis from 2400 to 1600 BCE. For the Zapotec-Otomi it is less clear but one explanation is Zapotec-Otomi unhappiness over the location of their home island of Teokan/Tehuacan at the mouth of the Lempa River while the ocean was rising following the end of the Ice Age. They went to Mexico in about 7000 BCE.

It is clear that the seven ethnic groups in central Mexico also identified with the rising planets of 8208 BCE, the beginning of the Third Age. In fact, there were seven rising luminaries on November 1, 8208 BCE, with Saturn rising first, then the triple star of Venus-Mars-Jupiter, then the Moon, then Mercury, and finally the sun at dawn. The symbolism of seven - the seven rising luminaries and the seven ethnicities - was surely not lost in the Valley of Mexico.

One place associated with Chicomoztoc is Culhuacan, a village/city in the Valley of Mexico. While it has a meaning in Nahuat, Nahuat likely did not exist yet when it was named. Instead its original meaning derives from Ch'orti', the language that several of the seven ethnicities would have spoken, at least as a second language, when Culhuacan was founded. In Ch'orti' it is kur wa' k'an or "being yellow points" or "yellow point beings." Yellow points is one way of describing the planets. Culhuacan associates the village's identity with the triple star event of 8208 BCE that was the defining moment of the Mesoamerican people.

Another place associated with Chicomoztoc is the Cerro de Culiacan, a high point in southern Guanajuato state. Culiacan references the triple star of 8208 BCE, rising over the Gulf of Fonseca, more clearly than Culhuacan. In Ch'orti' it is kur li ha' k'an and means "yellow points beside the water." The Cerro de Culiacan was likely a meeting place of the various ethnic groups before they chose the Valley of Mexico as their settlement area and before their founding of Teotihuacan.

While all seven ethnic groups no doubt thought about returning to El Salvador, their unity and construction of something fabulous like Teotihuacan, allowed them to forget about El Salvador. This is clear from the name of their common language Nahuat. In Ch'orti' it would be nab wat or "forget about returning home."

The Chicomoztoc cave symbolism does not represent humans emerging out of the earth. Rather, it symbolizes the escape of the four founding families out of the cave, Corinto, and into freedom in a land, El Salvador, which became the founding ground of all the Mesoamerican peoples. The founders of Teotihuacan used the same symbolism of escape and freedom as they created a new city.

The Mexica and Aztec of Aztlan

The Chichimeca and Mexica are two of the most important founding people of Mexico. The Chichimeca are a catch-all term for the semi-nomadic people living in the north of Mexico and the present-day southwest U.S. The Mexica are equivalent to Aztec and were the major power at the time of the arrival of the Spanish.

The term Chichimec or Chichimeca is a name in Ch’orti’ and is a play on the important site of Chinameca, El Salvador. Chinameca means “wrestle giant over disappearance of water” and was the site of a wrestling match between the Maya ancestors and the Xibalba hunters just a few days into the Maya ancestors living in Mesoamerica, circa 8680 BCE. The “chi” in Chinameca means “giant” but in Ch’orti’ a different vowel tone also gives “small” for chi. In Chichimec it is ch’i (small) ch’i’ih (giant) mek or “small ones wrestle giants.”

The Xibalba “giants” were long gone but their cousins were still around in the New Mexico area, the Zuni. Both the Xibalba (Manik) and the Zuni are distant relatives of the Ainu in Japan, lighter skinned and taller people. What may have happened is that each lineage was asked to send a contingent of warriors and their families to the north to protect the new populations in the north (i.e. Quiche, Otomi, Huasteca) from the Zuni. While at once protecting the populations in northern and central Mexico, the Chichimec warriors became a threat to peace in the Valley of Mexico.

The name Mexica has a similar meaning as Chichimec but they have a different path. Where the Chichimec were warriors of common descent, the Mexica are the elite of one of the original four founding Mesoamerican lineages. The names tells us which one. Mexica is mek ch’i’ih kah and means “wrestle giant at beginning.” It was the young Olmeca/Lenca lineage founder, Maix, who fought the Xibalba hunter at Chinameca at the beginning of Maya Mesoamerican history. Olmeca has a similar meaning: “wrestle leader over water."

One group of the Olmeca became the Mexica (Aztec). Two of the closest relatives of the Mexica are the Lenca and the Purepecha. In fact, the close relationship between the Mexica and Purepecha could explain why the Mexica never defeated the Purepecha – they didn’t really try since they were family (until a fierce 1479 war).

The Gemelli Aztec Migration Map

The Aztec provide us with an additional historical source to the Popol Vuh, a view from the Olmeca Maya lineage rather than the Ch’orti’ or Quiche Maya lineage. One of the best abbreviated Aztec views of history is provided in the Gemelli Aztec migration map.

Following an extensive visit in Mexico, Italian Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri drew a map in 1704 of the Aztec migration from Aztlan to Chapultepec Hill. The map was a rendering copied from indigenous sources, maintained by D. Carlos Siguenza. The stops along the way of the map include a Nahuatl (or what was thought to be Nahuatl) element, a loose English translation, and a drawing. According to legend, on May 24, 1065 CE the Mexica (Aztec) began this journey. The original drawing was 12 by 16 inches and full size is available.

The first part of this map corresponds to the history of the Popol Vuh and the names in the first third of the migration map are in Ch'orti', the language the Aztec ancestors spoke when those events occurred, rather than Nahuatl. In the middle the names are likely close to the Olmeca language of Veracruz rather than Nahuatl. I have numbered various stations to help explain what is happening.

1 - The first station is a hill and tree with a stand-off involving the ancestors of the Aztec (and Maya, Zapotec, etc.) on the left and the Xibalba hunters on the right with the horns. (Click on map to enlarge.) This does not seem to symbolize any particular event as much as the 1000-plus year conflict between the two sides, starting a few days after the Aztec ancestors, et al, arrived in El Salvador in about 8680 BCE. The droplets coming out of the mouth of the bird on top of the tree likely represent blood spilled and lives lost due to the Xibalba.

2 - Station 2 is also in the shaded square, the time prior to the cultural formation of the Aztec ancestors, et al. This depicts the god Auilix or Ahwilix, one of the three gifts the Aztec ancestors received in eastern El Salvador before they had a permament home. Ahwilix means "the wing movement" and was a raft for babies and small children which the women would secure under their arm, like a wing. With the ahwilix raft, families were able to enter the water to escape the Xibalba hunters, who were not too keen on water. Ahwilix was probably first used at the junction of the Torola and Lempa Rivers.

4 - The five people walking represent the migration from the mainland to Isla Tigre, Honduras. Each of the five walkers have an item above their head. My best guess of what these represent, from left to right: red ochre paint (most likely a re-connection with Taltal, Chile); an edible bird; skins for clothing; honey from bees; and turtles (for food).

5 - Aztlan. First, translating Aztlan: as tal lah ahn or "arrive to practice at the fatigued current." The fatigued current or lan is a quick way to say the Gulf of Fonseca where tidal action is limited (fatigued). Isla Tigre is where the ancestors went to and began to practice. They were practicing the beginning of Mesoamerican culture - the calendars, astronomy, animal husbandry, and cultivation.

6 - The next station is the migration off the island to the four islands on the mainland of El Salvador, represented by ten men. Each of the ten has a special ability or significance symbolized above their head. Some of these abilities were acquired soon after they left Aztlan, but they are all from the Maya formation period before 7600 BCE. The first, from the right, might be ability to navigate the oceans. The second might be cacao, first grown in Nicaragua. The third appears to be an underwater fuse to ignite gunpowder charges in plugged up lakes and waterways. The underwater fuse was first used at Lago Guija after a landslide blocked the egress. The fourth appears similar to the glyph in the first station and may represent the defeat of the Xibalba. The seventh one appears to be Ahchuk (One Hunapuh), the leader who was beheaded by the Xibalba but who made major advancements in astronomy. The eighth one is tobacco and is similar to the atl glyph. The ninth one is corn, first hybridized at Teotipa.

7 - The station in the top right corner has a near-naked man in an odd position and a cave-like structure with a door. The man has the words "Tocolco, Humiliation" by him. Tocolco in Ch'orti' is toh kol kot or "kneeling naked sacrifice." The Xibalba stripped their enemies naked before killing them. The cave structure has the words "Oztotlan, A Place of Grotts." Oztotlan is os t'ot' lan or "fit inside, knocking, near fatigued current." It appears the method of death was to lock the subject in the grotto with no food or water. There is one grotto-like hole at Corinto Cave that might have been used.

This refers to the story in the Popol Vuh of Xibalba warriors hearing loud noises from the Maya ancestors, capturing the ancestors and placing them in the Dark House. The place names in northern La Union department make it clear that the Aztec ancestors - the Olmeka - were practicing with gunpowder to make better water flow on the rivers. (The Olmeka were based in eastern El Salvador, next to the Xibalba, while the Maya were based in western El Salvador.) Some of these rivers would have been within ear-shot of Corinto Cave where the Xibalba were based. For example, Lislique, no more than 10 kilometers from the cave is li is li k'er and means "beside the movement, beside the dividing."

8 - The next set of two scenes took place back on Isla Tigre, so the order is slightly off. There is a scene marker, then an image of a baby perhaps, being carried by a bird; a pyramid; and then a tree with the word "Mizquiahwala." This word in Ch'orti' is mis ki' ahwa'al ha' or "cat hearts to jaguars by water." The cats are the common people and the jaguars are the elite. This is the story of heart sacrifice that led to many orphans (image of the baby).

The fact that the events in the 8th and 9th stations have a prominent place in this abbreviated Aztec history, are an indication that one of the fleeing groups, either the Miskito or Chibchan people, come from the same lineage as the Aztec-Olmeka.

10 - There is a stone circle with the words "Tetepanco. Wal of many stones." This event skips forward 6,000 years to the migration to Monte Alto and Izapa. Tetepanco is tet' tep ahn k'ot and means "arrival by current to hard flaps." This is not completely clear but might be a reference to the large stone carvings at Monte Alto.

The migration trail continues to the bottom right portion of the larger drawing.

11 - There is a tree with fruit and the words "Teotzapotlan. A place of Divine fruit." Teotzapotlan is te' ox ap ot lan and means "place of sheltered plants with penis-shaped fruit." This refers to the cacao and its phallic shape as well as to the aphrodisiac qualities of chocolate. Much cacao was grown along the Chiapas and Guatemala coasts.

12 - An interesting symbol with the word "Ylhuicatepec". Ylhuicatepec is il wih k'at tep pek and means "cross to see source of hard knob." The Aztec ancestors (Olmeka) crossed from the Pacific coast over to the Atlantic Gulf Coast of southern Veracruz. This tells us that they crossed in order to check out vanilla, also an aphrodisiac, which can cause a hard knob. The Olmeka had heard about the vanilla from the Totonac and went to live close by them. The symbol seems to have a crested vanilla orchid on the right and a vanilla vine on the left.

13 - A symbol of the crested vanilla orchid and the word Papantla, the Totonac city associated with vanilla. The English words are "an Herb with broad leaves." Papantla would be bah ban tal or "arrive to thing valuable to the body" and refer to the vanilla. I think Papantla here is referring to the vanilla plant rather than a move to the site of Papantla.

14 - It is not totally clear but this most likely refers to Lago Tzumpango in the Central Valley of Mexico. Tzumpango is sum pahn k'o or "twisting teeth over a pit" and perhaps teeth could be a skull. Then it would match the picture. It doesn't look like a happy scene. This does seem to indicate that the Mexica were the group of Olmeka who decided to move from Veracruz to the Central Valley very early (1400-1200 BCE).

15 - Apazca is ahp as k'a or "practice happy swinging." This refers to the movement and meditation also practiced at Chalchuapa, El Salvador at this time. Tlatilco may be the oldest settlement in the Central Valley, settled no later than 1200 BCE, and is famous for its acrobat ceramics (right), dated to 1300-800 BCE. The nearby site of the same culture is Tlapacoya and is tul ahp bah kor yah in Ch'orti'. This means "sore body condition due to free swinging." Both sites were named at a time when gymnastics was common. This indicates that it was the Mexica ancestors who practiced movement at Tlatilco and made the ceramics.

16 - Atlycalaquian - "a whirlpool where the water is swallowed." Apparently they built some pools, but it's not clear where. Atlycalaquian is aht li k'al lah ki' ahn or "fatigued (relaxed) heart next to retained current baths."

From there, the names in the map vary too much from the Ch'orti' to understand. In addition, it is hard to translate without knowing the context.

The Gemelli Aztec migration map makes it clear that the Aztec have common heritage with the Olmeka and the Maya. Many of the events shown on the map have parallels in the Popol Vuh. It also helps to clarify some of the unknown questions, such as why the Olmeka moved to the Veracruz Gulf Coast from the Chiapas/Guatemala coast.

The Mexica continued to use Ch'orti' as a naming language long after the end of the Maya Classic era. The first example is the city of Tenochtitlan, which the Mejica built in the middle of Lake Texcoco in 1325. It is built on an island, just like the ancient home of the Mexica ancestors at Lake Olomega, El Salvador. In Ch'orti', Tenochtitlan is ten noh ch'i' ti' (plus Nahuatl suffic tlan) and means "important growth after opening of flatland (valley). Tenochtitlan was built after some of the water was drained out of Lake Texcoco.

At the center of present-day Mexico City is the Zócalo, one of the largest public squares anywhere in the world, at 240 meters by 240 meters. It was used by the Mexica or Aztec for a variety of public events. Most or all of Tenochtitlan's 200,000 to 300,000 population in 1519 would have been able to fit in the Zócalo. In Ch'orti', Zócalo is tzok k'al lo', meaning "opening up the slack retention." This signifies that in order to build the city of Tenochtitlan, including the Zócalo, Lake Texcoco, and likely all five lakes in the Valley of Mexico, had to be partially drained. The trick was to drain it sufficiently to keep Tenochtitlan above lake level, but not so much that it lost its island condition, an important cultural attribute. Either the Mexica used the Ch'orti' language to name Zócalo because of the spiritual-political significance of the Ch'orti' language or the Ch'orti' (Putun) themselves assisted the Mexica to drain the lake and were given the right of naming the newly partially reclaimed lake bed.

A second method of reclaiming the lake bed along the shore of the island was the chinampa. A chinampa is a lake-recovered field, formed by creating a rectangular fence and piling neighboring lake bottom material into the fenced area. These were right next to the city of Tenochtitlan. Canals separate the chinampas. Like Zócalo, Chinampa is a Ch'orti' word, which may point to Ch'orti' assistance in creating the chinampa: chinam is town or city and pa' is food. Chinampa is "city food" or we would say "urban agriculture." Chinampa has a clever second meaning that makes it likely that the Ch'orti' picked this name. Chinam itself is ch'i' nam or "lack of growith (cultivation)." A city was a place where there was no space for cultivation. Chinampa broken down would be ch'i' nam pa' or the contradictory "cultivation of food where there is a lack of cultivation."

The Mexica at Tenochtitlan continued to gain strength and power in central Mexico. In 1428 they formed the Aztec triple alliance with two other city-states Texcoco and Tlacopan. Texcoco was Acolhua, who were likely linked to the Otomi. Tlacopan was Tepaneca and were possibly linked to the Quiche, i.e. Quiche who decided not to migrate to Guatemala. Tlacopan was also called Tacuba, a name of a town in western El Salvador that is associated with the return of a group of Quiche in the post-Classic period.

The Mexica, Acolhua, and Tepaneca created a new term for the leaders of the Aztec triple alliance: Huetlatoani. Using Nahuatl this is translated as “Elder Speaker," but Huetlatoani is a Ch'orti' phrase constructed to also appear Nahuatl, for local people. Using a Ch'orti' phrase would add legitimacy for populations outside the Valley of Mexico, especially for non-Nahuatl speakers. Every city or ethnic group would have had Ch'orti' translators. Huetlatoani is wet lat toh ahn ni' and it means “pointed tips supported by neighbors with sacrifices and currency.” Pointed tips refers to the weapons of the triple alliance. Neighbors near and far would have then known that they would be expected to provide human sacrifices and tribute to the triple alliance. And they would be taken by force if not given freely. Not so neighborly.

What's especially curious about this name is the ni' at the end. It seems that the Ch'orti' may have gotten the last laugh with the name. The -ni' suffix could have been changed to ni by some neighboring groups. The -ni suffix negates the statement so that it means “not supported by neighbors with sacrifices and currency.” This may mean that the Aztec triple alliance asked the Ch'orti' to support them by creating a name for their new leadership and the Ch'orti' obliged by slyly creating a name that suggested to neighboring peoples not to support the triple alliance.

Examining the history of the Aztecs and their ancestors has been useful for four reasons:

Bringing to light previously unknown details that are helpful in better understanding Aztec history

Understanding the extensive use of the Ch'orti' language, as protocol or naming language, even up to the point of European contact. It was the old, sacred language that was used to legitimate.

The Ch'orti' assisted with the public works projects of neighboring people, such as draining the Valley of Mexico lakes and helping construct the chinampa, including in the late post-Classic period.

The Aztec history is consistent with details of Maya history presented here for the first time. In other words, the Aztec history is consistent with the Popol Vuh, as translated herein.

12/08/2013

For those familiar with my writing, up to now it had been unclear how the Maya and Olmec went from being concentrated in El Salvador for thousands of years, from 8200 BCE to 2400 BCE, to spread out over thousands of kilometers from the northwest coast of Mexico to the Yucatan to the Pacific Coast of Chiapas and Guatemala by 1600 BCE. This dispersion happened in less than a thousand years. Such a dispersion is not natural, it takes an outside force like war, famine, or a life-changing invention. In Mesoamerica the dispersal force was disease: pellagra.

Pellagra is a non-hereditary disease caused from a deficiency of niacin in the diet. Corn, in its natural state, blocks tryptophan and niacin from being released. Before corn became large and tastier, the Maya would have had a more balanced diet, so sufficient niacin was consumed. High-niacin foods in Mesamerica would have included fish, peanuts, and avocado. Tryptophan would have been present in fish, peanuts, and squash seeds. But corn became more desirable around 2500 BCE. And perhaps a large part of the population was moving away from the traditional lake-side homes (Güija, Coatepeque, Olomega) and thus eating less fish.

Pellagra has a number of symptoms including red skin lesions, diarrhea, weakness, lack of coordination, nerve damage, paralysis, aggression, confusion, dementia, and death. It seems that the Maya learned early on that it was caused by corn. We see this in one of the names for corn, maix, which became maize in English. Maix means "bad movements" - bad runs and a clear reference to the diarrhea caused by pellagra.

The policy of the Maya elite, the leaders of the Chol-Ch'orti' lineage based at Igualtepeque, El Salvador, was to force any portion of a lineage with high incidence of pellagra to evacuate to outside of the traditional area of the Maya (El Salvador). Over the course of several hundred years, there were at least nine mass banishments involving most of the Maya population, resulting in only a small population of Maya left in the traditional homeland of El Salvador. The banished groups were sent north or west, usually by sea, either on the Atlantic or Pacific coast of Central America or Mexico.

Based on the meaning of their name, the Huasteca were the first group to be banished - Huasteca is was tech ka or "beginning of opening up from tortillas." The opening up refers to the lesions associated with pellagra. The reference to tortillas indicates that the Maya were aware quite early that pellagra was caused by corn. The Huasteca were probably from the Ch'orti' lineage and were banished north on foot to Copan where they took boats down the Copan River to the Motagua River to the Gulf of Honduras. Copan means "catch the current." From there they followed the coast of the Yucatan peninsula until they reached northeast Mexico. There they probably landed near Tuxpan or Naranjos and went inland.

Near Tuxpan is a lagoon called Tampamachoco or tam pa' mah choh ko(y) or "eating the corn with center with a bad reputation." This clear reference to non-treated corn, may have been the first landing place of the Huasteca.

The Quiche were probably the next banished group of Maya, leaving from Teopan and the Lago Coatepeque area. Before they left the leaders of the Quiche met with the leaders of the Ch'orti' at a place now called El Congo, to decide what to do. El Congo is kon k'o or "plan for the cliffs," referring to the cliffs surrounding Lago Coatepeque. The Quiche went the furthest north on the Pacific Coast side, indicating their early banishment. In contrast to the Ch'orti', nearly the entire Quiche community went together in spite that probably only a portion was suffering from pellagra. This would include the Quiche language groups Cakchiquel, Tzutuhil, Sipacapa, and Sacapultec. It likely also included language groups more distantly related to the Quiche, including Kekchi, Uspantec, and Pocomam. Some of these names reflect directly on the pellagra crisis. Kekchi is k'ek' ch'i' or "growing stronger," reflecting improvement following pellagra. Pocomam is pok ohom mam or "rinse dark spots in the ocean," referring to rinsing off the pellagra lesions in the ocean where the Quiche were banished to, which is the island of Teacapan in northwest Mexico. It appears that nearly the entire Quiche community left even those who were not suffering from pellagra.

The exception would be the ancestors of the people who now live in the town of Coatepeque, El Salvador. Their oral legend says that they were forced from living along the lakeshore of Lago Coatepeque but were allowed to take the name Coatepeque with them. Coatepeque means "bath in the hard, cracked cliff stones." Viewed from the inside, Coatepeque's stone cliffs look like a ringed serpent. It is easy to see how the phrase "Coate" became "coatl" in Nahuatl, a language that the Quiche helped to shape, meaning "serpent." The Quiche remained in Mexico for over 3,000 years, although some sub-lineages moved back to Central America much earlier, including the Kekchi, Uspantec, and Pocomam.

While the details are not quite as clear, another early banishment was the people who became the Purépecha in Michoacan state of Mexico. This is given by the meaning of Purépecha - pur lehp pech ch'a' or "orphans from the horizontal back and forth rubbing." "Horizontal back and forth rubbing" describes the motion of kneading the corn masa on a metate grinding stone. There are three clues why the Purépecha come from a banishment of the Olmec lineage. First, the Purépecha language is an isolate and the Olmec language became much more disintegrated than did the Maya languages. Second, the other two lineages in El Salvador - Chol-Ch'orti' and Quiche had early pellagra outbreaks - one would expect the Olmec to have had an early outbreak as well. The only other possible candidate for an early Olmec banishment would be the Totonacs. Third, the Purepecha have a somewhat elevated level of Mal'ta DNA that I associate with the Ainu, the Zuni, and the Xibalba. Mal'ta MA-1 is a 24,000 year old individual whose remains were found in south-central Siberia. According to the Popol Vuh, the Olmec lineage leader of the first generation to arrive in El Salvador, married a Xibalba woman. Thus, one would expect Olmec-related people to have a higher level of Mal'ta DNA than Maya-related people.

The Purépecha oral history says that they moved from the Pacific Coast up to the Michoacan highlands. The most likely route inland would have been by boat up the Rio Balsas and then on foot. The names of the coastal communities near the mouth of the Balsas River tell the story of arrival of the Purépecha. Southeast of Ciudad Lázaro Cárdenas, at the mouth of the Balsas River, is Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo. This name in Ch'orti' is ix ta'p pa' si wa’ tan neh h’o, meaning "rows of desirable tassels being in interior, storing the runs corn." The key phrase here is "runs corn" or diarrhea corn, making it clear that this corn was growing before the nixtamal solution had been found and shared. It is possible that the Ixtapa name was given soon after arriving and Zihuatanejo added after nixtamal was learned.

One other name might be from the arrival time of the Purépecha from eastern El Salvador: Atoyac, about 200 kilometers southeast of the Balsas mouth. It is ah toy ak', meaning "the offering for the skin," referring to the lesions from pellagra.

The deities of the Purépecha are mostly translatable using Ch'orti' indicating the Purépecha spoke a language relatively close to Ch'orti' when they arrived to present-day Michoacan. The first deity is Kurikaweri and is the sky god, the god of war and the sun. It is k'ur ik' ha' [wer] ri and means "points in the air beside the water," referring to the triple star event of 8208 BCE on Isla Tigre. The second deity is Kwerawaperi and she is the creator and mother earth goddess. In Ch'orti' it is kah [wer] lah ha' ber ri and means "beginning of planting beside slack water," referring to first cultivation on Isla Tigre in about 8300 BCE. [Note: I'm not able to translate the syllable wer.] This makes it clear that the Purépecha share the Isla Tigre origin with all the other Mesoamerican people. A third deity, Xaratenga, is the offspring of the first two and represents the west. This indicates that it is specific to the Purépecha and was gained upon going west from El Salvador. Xaratenga is the goddess of the sea and the moon and is ch'a'r aht ten k'a in Ch'orti'. This means "happy flattening (clearing) at horizontal (calm) lake" and most likely refers to Lake Patzcuaro, an early Purépecha settlement.

The Totonacs were perhaps the fourth banishment from El Salvador. They could have roots in either the Olmec or Chol-Ch'orti lineages, but two Olmec banishments were sent along the Pacific while the other two early Chol-Ch'orti' banishments (Huasteca and Yucatec) were sent along the Atlantic coast, thereby favoring a Chol/Ch'orti' origin for the Totonac. The name Totonac speaks to their pellagra banishment origin: t'oht' on ak' or "previous skin from tapping," referring to formerly having bad skin due to corn - tapping tortillas.

They seem to have landed at present day Veracruz Heróica on Mexico's east Gulf coast. While most names were later Nahuatalized or replaced by Spanish names, a few original names remain like Laguna Tarimoya in the city of Veracruz. Tarimoya is tar ri moy ha' or "arrive beside the constricted water." Just south of Tarimoya is a neighborhood called Pochota or poch ot tah, which means "forest covering for shelter," likely describing their first few nights in Veracruz.

Just south of Veracruz is the Jamapa River, which is ha' ma pa' or "bad corn river," linking the area to the bad (non-nixtamalized) corn that the Totonacs brought with them. But the Totonacs learned a new diversified agriculture that included large squash or pumpkins. On the north side of Veracura is Colonia Chalchihuecan, a name that is unmistakably Ch'orti'. It is ch'a'ar ch'i' weh kan in Ch'orti' or "learn to grow the fleshy horizontal one (squash)."

The Totonac seem to have struck out on a new path compared to many of the other banishments. They seem not to have made a conscious attempt to maintain the Maya language as their language is considered a language isolate, while the Huasteca, who were further from Central America and left before the Totonac, still speak a language considered Maya. The Totonac also cultivated little corn - understandable given pellagra, but even after nixtamal corn remained only a minor part of the diet.

The Totonac were the discoverers of vanilla and this most likely took place at Papantla de Olarte - the vanilla orchid is also called the Papantla orchid. Papantal de Olarte would be pa' ban tal te' hor ahr te' in Ch'orti' or "time of arrival to crested plant, valuable food plant." [Note: A better view of the crested nature of the flower.] In colonial times the Ch'orti'-speaking Putun traders gave the name vainilla to the Spanish. The Ch'orti' name was binilha' or "companions' curing liquid."

Given their distance from El Salvador perhaps the next group to be banished were those that became the Yucatec. It is likely that, like the Huasteca and Totonac, they were part of the Chol-Ch'orti' lineage. Their departure may have been around 2000 BCE, given settlement patterns in northern Belize and the Peten. Yucatec is yuk' k'at tech' and means "trembling, crossing the expanse." One of the symptoms of pellagra is lack of balance and shaking. Crossing the expanse may refer to the walk from Guija to Copan, where they caught boats. Alternately, the expanse may refer to the boat ride on the Caribbean Sea from the Bay of Honduras to northern Belize. The Maya had likely already named the Yucatan and the soon-to-be Yucatec lineage picked a name that was similar to Yucatan. Yucatan peninsula is yuk k'at ahn or "crossing the joining of currents" or "joining the currents across."

The early site of Santa Rita, in northern Belize, settled as early as 2000 BCE, suggests that the Yukatec went by boat from Copan to Belize. The nearby town of Corozal is k'or lo tz'a' and means "transport on slack wetness," referring to the gentle waters inside Belize's barrier reef. West a few kilometers of Corozal is Patchakan. In Ch'orti' it is pa' ch'ak k'an or "clear for yellow corn." Chetumal, just across the border in Mexico, is che tum mal and means "handle the narrow sea" and most likely indicates the path in the barrier reef that the Yucatek took along the coast to reach Corozal/Chetumal.

Reasons for the Banishments

Before looking at the last four banishments, it is good to discuss why the Maya elite decided it was necessary to take this action. At first, it is likely that they did not understand the disease. They may have thought it was contagious or hereditary. That could explain the first, Huasteca, banishment. But they had a lot of intelligence in health and soon would have known that it was not contagious or hereditary.

It was probably the symptoms themselves at a mass scale that made pellagra a threat. A large number of people with aggression, confusion, and dementia could tear away at the seams of society, threatening the way of life of the Maya. This was probably the case of those who were banished. Of course life must have been hell for the first and second generation of people in the banished groups - the Huasteca, the Quiche, the Yucatec, and the others.

The Last Four Banishments: Olmec, Mam, Kanjobal, and Ulua

Another group banished from the Olomega region, in eastern El Salvador, was the Olmec. This story starts with an important oral history of the Lenca, a people from the same lineage as the Olmec. This story was recounted by Lenca Jaime Núñez.

Once upon a time, many years after one part of our kingdom slipped into the sea, the Manauele Lords wanted to send an expedition to search the sea and locate the 'lost part' of our land. They knew that the earth was a giant turtle. Ixo-Kelkele, his wife Ulul, and Chief Aranuka sailed out and never returned. Warriors, priests, servants, artisans, doctors, magicians, dancers, and navigators, and experts in reading the stars went with. They aided their direction by placing guiding lights inside bowls, floating on the water. Sailors believed the guiding bowls would float over the back of the sacred eels of the ocean (sea currents) & show them the way.

The Lenca interpret the slipping away of the kingdom as part of the land mass of southeast El Salvador sliding into the ocean. I interpret it as a large part of the humans in the kingdom sailing away - and eventually becoming the Olmec. The oral history seems to have Ixo-Kelkele and company sailing out to look for the departed portion of the kingdom when it is they themselves who are the departed portion of the kingdom. This is made even clearer by all the specialized people who left, including doctors, magicians and dancers - people who would not normally be on a search party.

Let's look at the names of the leaders. Ixo-Kelkele is ix tzo k'er kere means "separating the nest, motion to divide in two." Ulul is ul lul and means "explain the spots." Ulul is key in understanding that this dividing of the Olmec and leaving the Lenca was caused by pellagra, since spots are the first and most common symptom of pellagra. Finally, Aranuke is ahr la'an nuk ker, which means "the time of dividing due to fatigued necks." Fatigued necks come from the lack of coordination due to pellagra.

Several place names in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico fill in more of the story of the Olmec. First, it appears that their center of population in El Salvador was in the eastern part of San Miguel department. Uluazapa is ur was sahb pa' or "explain about patted masa tortillas." This name seems to have come when the Ch'orti' lineage came to visit to explain about pellagra. The neighboring village is Comacaran, which is k'om ak' ahr ahn in Ch'orti' or in English "time of running due to spliced skin." Spliced skin is one way of describing the skin lesions of pellagra. The big meeting between the Ch'orti' and the Olmec/Lenca seems to have taken place at Conchagua, 30 kilometers southeast of Comacaran and near the Gulf of Fonseca. Conchagua is kon cha' wa' and means "plan for two beings," referring to how the Olmec and Lenca would separate and become two peoples.

Vegetation-covered Quelepa mound in midground.

Twenty kilometers west of Uluazapa is Quelepa and this is where the remaining Olmec settled when the elite Olmec were forced to take to the seas. Eventually this Olmec remnant became known as the Lenca and Quelepa became their ceremonial center. They likely spoke proto-Lenca rather than Ch'orti' at the time but most were probably fluent in Ch'orti' and they used Ch'orti' as their naming/protocol language. Quelepa is ker leb pa' in Ch'orti' and means "divided by the patted masa." "Patted masa" means tortilla or corn. This clearly indicates the separation of the Olmec. Moncagua is a village five kilometers from Quelepa. It is mo on ka wa' and means "beginning of being restricted from the previous." The "previous" would mean the Olmec who were forced to leave, although this meaning might suggest that the two Olmec groups - those with pellagra and those without - were separated for some time before the sea departure.

The Olmec were sent by the Ch'orti' by boat west along the Pacific Coast, most likely departing near Las Tunas beach where the Lenca legend says their kingdom was ripped in two. By the time the Olmec were past the present-day border of El Salvador and Guatemala, it appears that small groups began to break off (or were forced) and went to shore. The Xinca may have been the first group. Xinca is chin kah or "shaking at the beginning" - a reference to pellagra. Lenca leader Leonel Chavez believes that the Xinca are related to the Lenca by language and lineage, supporting the idea that they were a break-off from the Olmec banishment.

The same - or a second - break-off group seems to have stopped at the shore near the site of Monte Alto in eastern Guatemala. The lack of inhibition due to pellagra may help explain some of the stone heads and potbellies made at Monte Alto starting in 1800 BCE (right). Many of the stones have magnetic properties.

The main group of Olmec immigrants probably settled at the Izapa site in southeast Mexico. Izapa has a meaning directly related to pellagra, ix sahb pa' or "movement from the patted masa." This indicates that Izapa was settled at the same time as Monte Alto, at the time of the Olmec banishment in about 1800 BCE. Izapa reached its peak in about 600 BCE. It has been debated whether it was a Maya or Olmec site. It was both and there was no difference in 1800 BCE.

About a kilometer from Izapa is the town of Tuxtla. It is tutz' tal ha' in Ch'orti' or "arriving by water and extending out." This name describes arriving by sea from El Salvador and then extending or spreading out once arriving at Izapa. The Olmec likely carried the Tuxtla name with them from Izapa to Veracruz and its famous Tuxtlas. The name Tuxtla also sees the collapsing of the tal sound to tl, something the Olmec may have contributed to the Nahuatl language later developed at Teotihuacan.

About ten kilometers east of Izapa in Guatemala is the town of Malacatan. In Ch'orti' it is mar lah k'at ahn or "crossing the sea from the fatigued current." The "fatigued current" is an expression for the Gulf of Fonseca. This expression was used repeatedly by the Chibcha when they left the Gulf several thousand years earlier. Technically, the Olmec may have left from the Pacific Ocean rather than the Gulf, but it would have been in the region of the Gulf of Fonseca. Malacatan helps to confirm the relationship between Olomega and Izapa and the relationship between the Olmec and the Lenca.

Pajón, 100 kilometers up the coast from Izapa, is another pre-Classic site. In Ch'orti' it is pa' on or "previous corn." The Olmec continued to grow corn that was untreated and continued to contribute to pellagra.

Two or three hundred years later, after nixtamal was invented, part of the Olmec community in the Izapa area moved to Veracruz, on the opposite side of Mexico, and became the famous Olmec civilization. If they walked northeast into Guatemala they would have reached small navigable rivers that drain into the Usumacinta River, thus minimizing time spent walking. Earlier I wrote about the links in place names between Veracruz and eastern El Salvador.

The Olmec (and Purepacha) were not the only banishment from eastern El Salvador. Earlier I wrote about the Cacaopera, a group of Miskito-Matagalpa who came (back) to El Salvador to grow cacao along the Torola River. Part (or possibly all) of the Cacaopera community became infected with pellagra and they had to follow the instructions of the Ch'orti' too. The group that left went north to the Honduran Atlantic Coast and became the Ulua along the Ulua River. In Ch'orti', Ulua is ur lur and means "explain the spots." The spots are from pellagra. The Cacaopera-Ulua probably first settled at Ticamaya in the lower Ulua valley and not far from present-day Cholola. They also named their villages in Ch'orti', the language of protocol even beyond the Maya. Ticamaya is ti' ka ma yah and means "beginning of bad openings illness."

There was a third Olmeca/Lenca banishment, most likely a very small one just before nixtamal was invented. A group of Lenca with pellagra were sent from southeast El Salvador to northern Morazan, across the Torola River. The name Meanguera, a municipal seat just across the river is mah ahn k'er ha' in Ch'orti' and means "dividing those by the weak current water," a reference to the split in the Lenca who lived near the Gulf of Fonseca. Naming this place Meanguera (or Maanguera) was a bit of a faux pas, given that there is an island of the same name in the Gulf. This demonstrates that it was likely not an elite group that moved to Morazan.

Besides the Huasteca and Yucatec, there were two more internal Ch'orti' banishments from the "bad openings illness." It is hard to tell which came first or if they came before or after the Olmec. But since they landed on the coast slightly to the southeast of Izapa - closer to El Salvador - they likely came after the Olmec. These two Ch'orti' banishments became the Mam and the Panjobal people. From the place names it appears that these two banishments happened at about the same time and went to the same place - Takalik Abaj.

Takalik Abaj, in western Guatemala, is located 400 kilometers west-northwest of the mouth of the Lempa River. It is north of the regional center Retalhuleu. They likely came up the Samala River to the Ok River to Retalhuleu. Ok is "walk" or "walk from river" and the first two syllables of Retalhuleu mean "arrive with load." The two groups likely stopped first at Asintal, about a 16 kilometer walk from the Ok River. Asintal is ah sin tal and means "the series of arrivals." This name makes it clear that there was more than one migration but that the migrations happened at about the same time. The nearby river Ixchaya River, also close to Takalik Abaj, tells a similar story, it is ix cha' yah and means the "movement of two infected." This refers to two groups infected with pellagra and confirms that there were two migrations.

The names of the Mam and Kanjobal lineages and sub-lineages tell more about their starts during the pellagra crisis. Mam means "dark spots," a reference to the pellagra lesions. Of the sub-lineages of the Mam, Ixil and Tektitek appear to have initiated after the pellagra. The Awakatek, though, seem to speak of the move to Guatemala. It is ah wa' k'at tech and "the crossers while being open." The crossers refer to those who made the ocean passage from El Salvador to Guatemala. "Being open" refers to the pellagra lesions.

Kanjobal is kan ch'op par and means "learn of expulsion by boat." This makes it clear that the pellagra dispersion was not voluntary. The Güija lineage with pellagra, who would become the Kanjobal, were forced by the Güija lineage without pellagra, who would be the Chol-Ch'orti', to leave El Salvador. A sub-lineage is the Mocho, which is moch tzo or "fold up the nest" - leaving El Salvador. Another sub-lineage is the Tojolabal, which is toh hol ha' pal and means "offering on the boat on the head water." The "head water" likely means at the beginning of the trip on the head waters, such as at Lago Güija. The Chuj sub-lineage may be ch'uhch' which is "jerked" and would refer to being jerked away from their community in El Salvador. Even sub-languages that diverged much later from the Kanjobal appear to have acquired their name at the banishment time when they were already distinct family lineages. Similar to Awakatec, the Acatec is ah k'at tech and means "the opened crossers." The Jacaltec would be hak' ahr tech and would mean "diminishing of the opening up," referring to the time of getting better.

Not only were there banishment to the coasts of Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico, there were further movements from these new population centers to the Gulf Coast and Pacific Coast of the present-day U.S. Several names of Native American nations indicate that they were founded out of the Maya pellagra crisis. Whether they were banished or left voluntarily is not clear. This will be covered in more detail in a separate post.

Discovering Lime and the Nixtamal Solution

It seems that soon after the last banishment, whether Mam or Kanjobal, the Chol-Ch'orti' lineage discovered the cure to pellagra. This discovery happened in present-day southern La Libertad department of El Salvador, with Huizucar and Jicalapa being key. Jicalapa was a long-time Maya community since about 7800 BCE, when the Güija flood refugees resettled there and Teotepeque. Much later, in about 1600 BCE, it seems that the Maya were gunpowder blasting at Huizucar, most likely improving the downflow of the Huizucar River. The Maya discovered gunpowder by 7600 BCE and used it mainly for public works projects. They must have blasted through limestone, creating a new substance which we call lime. Lime, or calcium oxide, does not occur naturally in nature. Limestone must be baked or blasted in order for lime to occur.

They took the lime to Jicalapa to test it out. The name Huizucar has a double meaning. The first is wih suk kar and means "origin of lime while cutting." Cutting refers to the blasting work. The second meaning is wis uh kar and means "sacred lime protector." Tilapa, a village close to Huizucar is tihr lab pa' or "breaking down the patting masa (corn)", linking the discovery of lime to pellagra. Lime breaks down the corn so that niacin is released.

Corn that has been nixtamaled. By Glane23 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

Several place names around Jicapala, 35 kilometers to the west of Huizucar, provide more details. Jicalapa itself is hix kal lab pa' or "lime to loosen patted masa (corn)." The river just east of Jicalapa is the Sensipa. This is xe'en sib pa', meaning "producing the swollen corn." Corn soaked in lime puffs out much more than corn that isn't. Ten kilometers west of Jicalapa is Sihuapilapa, which is si wa' pi lab pa' or "number of companions are patting masa." Soaking the corn in lime and water is called nixtamal. This is ni ix tam al or "the time of no more moving inside." "Moving inside" is a reference to the runs caused by the untreated corn and is the same ix as in maix, which became maiz or maize.

Once the Chol-Ch'orti' Maya discovered the nixtamal solution to pellagra, it appears that they sent out emissaries to all the Mexico-Central American peoples, including the banished Maya. There are place names with many groups that reflect this time. One of the more obvious is El Baul, which became a pre-Classic Maya site of either the Mam or Kanjobal in coastal Guatemala. Baul is pa' ur or "explain the masa." While earlier it was necessary to explain the pellagra masa, now it was necessary to explain the nixtamal masa. One of the Kanjobal sub-lineages is the Jacaltec or hak' ahr tech, which means "diminishing of the opening up," explaining the impact as people began using the nixtamal process. And the river west of Takalik Abaj is the Nima which is ni mah or "no more badness," referring to nixtamal.

The process happened among the Olmec communities centered at Izapa. One other community where they likely settled was El Mesak, southeast several kilometers in Guatemala. Mesak is mes ak' and means "clean the skin." Mesak refers to skin being cleared up either because their diet became more diversified or the nixtamal process was shared with them. Even more obvious is the community of Petacalapa, about 10 km east of Izapa in Guatemala. Petacalapa is pet ha' kar la pa' and means "pour water with lime over patting masa (corn)."

The Chol-Ch'orti' also sent the nixtamal formula to the Purépecha, along the Guerrero/Michoacan coast. Petacalco, a town near the mouth of the Rio Balsas River, is very clear. It is: pet ha' kal k'o(y), which means "pour water over lime without vigor." The precise instructions let people know it wasn't necessary to shake or do much stirring. Sixty kilometers west, up the Pacific Coast, is Caleta de Campos, which is kal eht ha' k'am pos, or "in water tested the lime from useful black magic." The syllable pos or "black magic" is usually reserved for working with gunpowder. This town further links lime to the gunpowder usage at Huizucar, El Salvador. One gets a sense from Caleta de Campos, the re-telling of the story of how lime was discovered.

It appears that the Purépecha had already migrated partially inland at the time of nixtamal. Huetamo is a village about 120 kilometers inland from Ixtapa-Zihuatenejo. In Ch'orti it is weh tam h'o or "desirable pulp in the center," likely reference to nixtamaled corn. And about 80 kilometers west of Huetamo is Churumuco. While the name doesn't directly relate to pellagra or nixtamal, one gets the sense it may have been named at this time. In Ch'orti' it is ch'ur rum muk ho and means "good guardian spirit buried underground."

The Chol-Ch'orti' also sent people to the Ulua in northern Honduras and Belize. This is seen in the name Despoloncal in the lower Ulua River valley of Honduras. Despoloncal is tech bol on kal or "beads of lime open up the old corn." This name is interesting because it shows that there was an understanding that the corn was the same -the same "old" corn, but the process, the nixtamal, was different. In Belize, the village of Calcutta is near what may have been the original settlement of the Yucatek of Santa Rita. Calcutta is kal kut ha' or "patting with lime in the water." Thirty kilometers north is Bacalar, Mexico, which is pa' kal ahr, "time of the lime in corn."

Word of the nixtamal solution also reached the Totonac along the Veracruz coast. The clearest indication is the town of Calnali, in Hidalgo state, 140 kilometers west of Tuxpan. Calnali is kal nar ri in Ch'orti' and means "beside the lime for the corn," which seems to indicate that a source of limestone, and hence, lime was located near Calnali. The city of Xalapa might have been named after nixtamal. It is ha lahb pa' and means "water over rubbing masa (corn)." Colipa, about 120 kilometers north of Veracruz and 25 kilometers inland seems to be another location of limestone. Colipa is kor ri pa' and means "beside what frees the corn."

The Chol-Ch'orti's also explained to the Lenca in eastern El Salvador about the nixtamal process. The Lenca royal dynasties are called Taulepa, which is a Ch'orti' word t'a' ul lehp pa' and means "explain about flesh of patting corn." The Lenca date their royal lineage back to when the Ch'orti' explained the nixtamal process to them in about 1600 BCE.

Once the communities of the Chiapas-Guatemala coast learned the nixtamal process, they quickly became a center of cacao production which helped to fuel the pre-Classic development. The name Chiapas comes from this time period. It is ch'i' ap as or "practice growing the swinging (one)," referring to the cacao. To the northwest of Izapa along the coast is Pijijiapan or pi ch'i' ch'ih ap ban, which means "companions growing the good large swinging fruit (cacao)." Because the name uses the subject pi or "companions," it is clear that it was the Ch'orti' visiting the Chiapas coast who named this Olmec village.

Cacao also was grown along the Guatemala coast. Ujuxte is a pre-Classic site on the western coast of Guatemala. It is uh hux te' or "picking the sacred tree," referring to the cacao. Takalik Abaj is a pre-Classic site and seems to have been near the first settlement of the Mam and Kanjobal. It is tak k'ar ik' ap pach' which means "dry in air, crush the swinging one, store." Again, the "swinging one" refers to the cacao. The name Takalik Abaj describes the processing of the cacao.

Questions and Conclusions

Two questions raised by the pellagra crisis related to the diet and to the long-term political relationships among the various Maya groups and states. Related to the diet, if the Maya knew that a diet heavy in corn was the cause of pellagra, why did they continue to eat a corn-heavy diet causing new pellagra outbreaks? Were they able to identify other sources of niacin like fish?

The second question is to what extent did the pellagra crisis cause long-term instability, resentments and aggression between the Chol-Ch'orti' and all the other Maya? Did it cause any role in the break-down of Maya unity during the Classic period when many city-states were warring with each other?

There are several conclusions about the pellagra crisis.

First, the pellagra crisis delayed the flowering of the Maya civilization by 500 to 1000 years. The delay was caused by energy devoted to the crisis rather than development from about 2400 BCE to 1700 BCE and by confusion, difficulty in maintaining cultural memory, and perhaps lack of succession due to the more serious effects of pellagra such as aggression, dementia, and death.

On the other hand, the development delay was mitigated partially by the new-found independence of the various lineages as they were banished by the Chol-Ch'orti' lineage. The earliest Maya-Olmec structures near Monte Alto and Izapa are an expression of independence and perhaps rebellion from the control of the Chol-Ch'orti' lineage, in addition to being expressions of beauty and spirituality.

A third conclusion is that the pellagra crisis was the primary cause of the dispersion of the Maya, including the Huasteca in northeast Mexico, the Quiche in northwest Mexico before they returned to Guatemala, the Yucatec to Yucatan and Belice, the Olmec, first to the Chiapas-Guatemala coast and then Veracruz, and the Mam and Kanjobal to Guatemala, along with related lineages. At the same time it left few Maya in El Salvador. This is the reason that El Salvador is generally seen on the periphery of the Maya world (if even that), when it was the center of Maya development for more than 6,000 years, from 8200 BCE to 1800 BCE. It is likely that the Chol-Ch'orti' lineage that remained in El Salvador, i.e. at Chalchuapa, retained, at least among some, a senior status until at least 500 BCE.

Relatedly, the pellagra crisis explains why the Maya languages split into six major groups between 3500 and 4500 years ago (Huasteca, Quiche, Yucatec, Mam, Kanjobal, Chol-Ch'orti'). A more normal evolution of languages would suggest a tree structure of the languages rather than so many breaks within several hundred years.

Finally, through the pellagra crisis, the Maya learned the hard way about the dangers of mono-cropping and a mono-diet. Corn was being grown as the major crop of every community and was the major part of most families' diets. This caused the pellagra crisis. It is possible that once the Maya learned nixtamal they continued mono-cropping corn. However, it could be that the Maya responded to the crisis with a bigger emphasis on beans and squash and began the practice of the three sisters: corn, beans and squash, and more sustainable agricultural practices in general.

The story will be presented in three parts: the first days in the country when they walked east from Toluca Beach (close to where surfers come now from all over the world) to the Lempa River, crossing the river and going toward the volcanos of Usulután. One knows of this story due to the meaning of the names of the villages and rivers where they passed in proto Ch'orti', the language they spoke. To keep these names alive no doubt that the Maya ancestors covered this same path on foot each generation, telling stories along the way. The second part begins with the capture of the Maya ancestors by a tribe of large people in Galingagua. From there they made a dramatic march to the base of the large ones in Corinto cave. Earlier I described the colors of the cave and presented photos of it. Soon they escaped and ran back along the same path probably at night, turning off it near Yoloaiquin and then followed a few kilometers off the south bank of the Torola River until they arrived at San Juán de Edén. There they had a little more security because, as they soon found out, once they waded into the Lempa River the large ones would not follow. They made mini rafts for the babies call auilix or ahwilix, the first of the three dieties that provided to them in the wilds of El Salvador.

[Note on the letters: The l and r were equal. The b and p were equal. The k' was normally pronounced by the Lenca, Pipil, and Spanish like a g. The w was pronounced by the Lenca like gü. At times the t was pronounced like a d by the Spanish.]

The four rafts land on the shore. The stones are still there.

1 - Toluca: tor uk' ka: Beginning of sadness caused by the bruisers. Place of arrival, named later. The same with the neighboring beach, Amatal, which is "arrival to the bad ones."

2 - Rio Huiza: wih tz'ah: Source of wetness (water)

3 - Rio Comalapa: ko' mar lap pa': Preparation of gourds for food brought from ocean (carried with them on the rafts)

14 - Laguna Talquezal: tal k'ech tz'ah: arrival of Carry Bright Colors. The quetzal. This might be why they had pleasure in nearby Guajoyo. From this day the quetzal has its name.

15 - Quebrada Roldan: lor tahn: dark spot in the interior. Upon crossing the Lempa River, they walked up Roldan Creek, seeing the darkness of Taburete Hill and the mountains of Usulután, until arriving at Galingagua.

16 - Galingagua: k'ar in k'ah wa': remembering being first retained. A thought of one who made it through the ordeal and returned to the place of the capture.

17 - El Zúngano: tzun k'an noh: the greedy yellow large ones. Greedy (tzun) is almost like foreigner, tzur. So this could be "yellow large foreigners."

19 - Los Chapetones: ch'a' bet ohn ehtz: Duty to watch previous lying down. They took turns watching through the night. First night of being captured

21 - Tecapán: te' kap ban: brown leaves held by the teeth. The large ones stopped to get some tobacco. Perhaps they were in the area getting tobacco leaves when they heard the Maya ancestors.

22 - El Tigre: ti' k'ere': slicing mouth. The jaguar. In a bit we will learn that one of the large ones was scratched. This is the first encounter of the Maya ancestors with the jaguar. El Cerro Tigre has always carried the name of the tiger, slicing mouth.

25 - Chagüite: ch'a' wit te': lying down at opened up tree. Second night captured. Perhaps this type of tree later became named Amate.

26 - Jucuapa: huk' wa' bah: being scrapes his body

27 - Chinameca: ch'i'ih nam mek ha': wrestle with a large one over disappeared water

The names of the villages around Chinameca tell more of the story of the injured large one and the wrestling match there, some have names that sounded like Spanish words/names and were given a similar-sounding Spanish name:

Boqueron: pok ker on: opened up from previous rinsingZaragoza: xar ak' os ha': scratched skin opened fitting (himself) in waterNueva Guadalupe: wa'at ahr lup: the occasion of returning to re-submergeOromontique: hor ohom on ti': crested one foaming at opening from previous slash Ojo de Agua: eye of water. Perhaps the large one threw water in the eye of the Maya ancestor, further precipitating the struggleCopinol: k'op in hor: first time lifting up crested one

32 - Chapeltique: ch'a' per ti': lying down rasping mouth. The infected one could barely breathe. Third night captured. One of the names the Maya gave to the large ones, Manik, means "bad convulsions" or "convulsions of the bad one."

33 - Guatajiagua: wat ah yah wa': being of infected one returns home. The death of the infected one.

40 - Rio Yubulba: yuh pur bah: Cluster moving up and down (over) body. Seems like a family of jaguars

41 - Ocotillo: ok koht ti': on all fours, mouth by the legs. Seems like the moment of attack of the jaguar.

42 - Sunsulaca: tzun sur ak' kah: foreigners begin peel off skin. Seem like they peeled off the skin of the dead one (what skin was left). Could be the basis for the much later practice of peeling the skin off of victims.

43 - Yoloaiquin: yor loh way kin: stick hits slacker sleeper. One or some slept late and were hit. Stick seems to refer to the large (tall) ones. Fifth night captured

44 - Rio Achiotes: ah ch'i'ih ot ehtz: observe shelter of giants

45 - Rio Tepemechin: teb ehm mech in: first descent to the hard shell. That is, to the Corinto Cave

46 - Cueva de Corinto: kor in toh: first nude sacrifice. First sacrifice at the hands of Xibalba, the victim of the jaguar, later their skin peeled (nude to the extreme). Hundreds of years later Hunahpu would be stripped before being killed here.

The Maya ancestors were held for some days in the cave. Hard to know how many but probably not a lot. At this point in the story is the escape of the Maya ancestors, perhaps in the night along the same path that they were already familiar with. After several hours near Ocotillo they may have turned northwest to follow the Torola valley. The trail picks up a bit later at Guiligüiste.

51 - Miracapa: nir ak' kahp bah: Scratch of skin of body heals. This probably refers to a scratch from the jaguar at Gualococti. Note: Seems that "nir" was changed to a more Spanish sounding "mir" in colonial times.

55 - Cucurucho: kukur uch choh: Tumbling (with) pleasure love. Was this amorous place named on the escape trip or perhaps on a more relaxed return visit later on, easily within a few hours walk from the camp at the Lempa?

57 - San Juán de Edén: san wa' ahn te' eht ten: Current being swollen, challenging clearing (of) trees. The clearing was made at a place called Jardín and people stayed probably some weeks or months where the Torola River joins the Lempa River (the swollen water). This is an example where a place with an indigenous name that sounded like Spanish words, was given that Spanish name, even if, in this case, St. John had nothing to do with Eden.

Discussion of the Wrestle at Chinameca

The wrestle at Chinameca is an important event in the Maya-Lenca-Olmec history. According to Raphael Girard, at least up to the 1950s when he wrote, the Ch'orti' did a wrestling ceremony in which a white giant (the blonde large ones) is against a black giant (the Maya ancestors, even though Girard had these characters in reverse order). The white giant is called "Gavite" by the Ch'orti', which is k'abi te', "seepage from trunk," a clear reference to the infected large one. The black giant is named Golillo which comes from k'ori, porter, one who hauled the things of the large ones. At the end of the drama, the black giant defeats the white giant, although in a final act the white giant defeats the black one, representing the later death of Hunahpu at the hands of Xibalba. The wrestling drama of the giants, with the names "Seepage from the Trunk" and "Porter" seems to be a clear reference to the events of Chinameca, some 10,600 years ago.

Other links to Chinameca comes from the name Olmec or Olmeca, which is based on hor mek' ha', or "Struggle with Large One over Water." This means that the person who wrestled the giant was Maix (Not Ready Yet), Majukutaj in the Popol Vuh, the founder of the Olmec and Lenca lineage. The wrestle could have been the moment in which Maix's name changed from Not Ready Yet to "Wrestle a Giant over Water." Surely the young Maix wanted to show to the others that he was ready. Chinameca also corresponds to Olomega, the lake home of the Olmec and Lenca for thousands of years: Olomega: hor ohom mek' ha': "froth (of) ones (that) wrestled large ones (over) water. Froth is a figure of speech that means lake or ocean but also home. It is not surprising that a name as important as Chinameca was carried to Mexico by the Olmecs and given to a village of Veracruz.

It was the same Maix or Olmeka (Holmekha) that had a partner woman of the large ones. The Maya ancestors named her Xb'akiyalo or xib pak'i yah lo', which means "molded by extended infected scraped." That seems to mean it was the daughter or possibly widow of the large one who died on the trail. This also makes it appear as though it happened very quickly after they arrived at Corinto Cave and that she was given to Olmeka as an honor for the wrestling match. The Olmec-Lenca lineage began as a half-and-half mix between the large yellow ones and a Maya-ancestor.

Another place where the history of the Chinameca wrestling match emerges is with the name Chichimeca of Mexico - a nomadic tribe of the north that, according to rumor, arrived to central Mexico as part of the make-up of the Aztecs. Chichimeca has two contrary meanings: chi can mean large or small depending on the inflection, so that Chichimeca could be "small one who wrestled against a giant over water" or "giant that wrestled a small one over water." The former is more likely and would indicate a residual Olmec population that had drifted north before the Aztec period. The latter case is interesting in that it would indicate a remnant population of the large ones (that would have separated from the El Salvador group sometime before 8700 BCE) in northern Mexico or the New Mexico area. Perhaps Chichimeca was meant as a warning, like Azteca, which in Ch'orti' is as tech' ka, that is "beginning of the practice of opening up."

Descendants of the Bering Strait passage group would be the people of the Clovis points who may have almost died out with the end of the large game in North America. At least one group of descendants made it to Central America. Besides Corinto, there is evidence of very early presence in Honduras and skeletal remains at Tulum, Mexico have a probable date of up to 14,500 years ago. In Ch'orti' Tulum means "beings (under) earth," signifying that the Maya had also found the skeletons. The passive treatment of the "beings" suggests that they were not Maya ancestors. And a second group may have gone to South America. The name Surinam means in Ch'orti' "first disappearance of the foreigners."

11/21/2012

The place names of eastern El Salvador help to place that region as the place of origin of the Olmecs, who likely left El Salvador for Mexico's Veracruz Gulf region sometime between 2000 and 1800 BCE, with a likely stop in between. Further confirming the Olmek link between eastern El Salvador and Veracruz are place names in Veracruz. Most place names in the region have a Nahuatl origin or finish. But there are some older place names that pre-date Nahuatl and are likely the original names given by the Olmecs, which appears to be a Mixe-Zoque language, a close relative of the Mayan languages according to Joseph Greenberg.

Here are some of the place names in Veracruz:

Cosoleacaque Sayula Tonala

Nanchital Mezcalapa Choapas

Hueyapan Ostion Sontecomapan

Cuichapa Tecuanapa Guazinapa (Rio)

Coxcoapan Hiuhualtaja Nanciyaga

Tepeyaga Mecayapan Tatahuicapan

Chacalapa Macayal Cahuapan

Nopalapa El Azuzal El Manati'

Cobata Tapalapan Totogal

All of these are place names that one would not be surprised to hear in eastern El Salvador, where you find names like: Jucuapa, Miracapa, and Uluazapa. Most of the Veracruz names above have a Ch'orti' Maya sound to them but only have a partial, at most, meaning in Ch'orti'. And they have a Lenca sound to them, the language of the people who have lived in eastern El Salvador for thousands of years. This is precisely what one would expect with the Olmec place names. But some names could beyond just sounding similar.

Chinameca
is a town southwest of the coastal city of Coatzalcoalcos, Veracruz.
Chinameca is also a town in the San Miguel department of El Salvador, likely the first Chinameca. This name still has meaning in Ch'orti',
indicating that it was first named at an early date, before the Olmecs
moved to Veracruz where their language began to quickly change. This means that the town, or at least the place name, of Chinameca, El Salvador, has existed since at least 2000 BCE. In Ch'orti':

Chinam - pueblo (people, town)Meka - carry in one's arms (or Olomeka)

Meka likely refers not so much to Lake Olomeka but to the Olmecs themselves, so Chinameca means "town of the Olmecs." Its literal meaning is "town carry in one's arms".

Like the sister language of the Olmecs, the Lenca language began to
change quickly once the Olmecs left for Mexico. This indicates that the
cultural need to keep the language close to the Mayan no longer was so
strong.

Catemaco is another place name with likely ties to El Salvador. I believe that Catemaco was the first settlement of the Olmces in Veracruz. Lago Catemaco undoubtedly reminded them of Lago Olomega. It is nearly the same size and mountains rise up around most of the lake, like Olomega. It is very near to the coast, less than 15 kilometer from the Laguna Sontecomapan.

Catemaco directly harkens back to Olomega:

Ka - to rememberTemaco - Teomeka

To add formality and importance to the name of their first settlement, the Olmecs used the old name - the original Mayan name - for Olomega (Teomeka): Remembering Teomeka. Each syllable changed: teo to te, me to ma, and ka to co. The Olmecs already lost memory of the precise name of Teomeka - and Olomega for that matter. This indicates that generations passed between the departure from El Salvador and the arrival in Veracruz. I think those generations were spent on the Honduran coast at a site called Travesia ("sailing"). From Travesia they would get to know the Atlantic Ocean with their sailing vessels after spending so many years along the Pacific. Those who stayed in Honduras became known as the Uluas.

The Olmecs soon developed their own culture in Veracruz, related but distinct from the Mayan culture they left behind in El Salvador. In their place names they provided clues about where they came from, in order to remember Teomeka.

Due to the rising ocean level from the glacial melt they were forced to move off Isla Tigre and the triple star gave them the astrological symbol that called for the move. Some peoples - the Tams (Chibchans) and the Ilocs (Misumalpan languages) - rejected the Mayan culture, including the vision of creating agriculture, and moved east and south. Later one Misumalpan group, the Cacaopera, would decide to return to El Salvador and re-embrace Mayanism.

But the Olmec and Lenca people embraced the new Mayan culture and each of the four founding lineages found a sacred island to live on. These islands spread the width of El Salvador. The Olmec and Lenca chose Olomeguita and Estrechura, twin islands in Lago Olomega, about 20 kilometers southeast of the present-day city of San Miguel and 15 kilometers north of the present-day Pacific Ocean coast. In the photo the islands are on the left foreground while Chaparristique Volcano is on the right.

The Olmec and Lenca come from the founding heritage of Maix (Majukutaj in the Popol Vuh), which means Not Ready Yet in English. Maix was called this because he was the youngest of the four rafters who made the journey and was not yet ready to lead the group of four rafts. Maix, not yet with a partner, likely found a partner in the weeks or months that they were held at Corinto cave. The Xibalbhans, likely known to themselves as the Manik, were a tall people, sometimes called giants. Maix's partner was probably the woman called Xb'akiyalo, Egret Woman in the Popol Vuh, probably for her long legs. Her name also hints that she was from Xibalbha. It is possible that the Manik were lighter skinned. So the Olmec and Lenca tend to be taller and possibly lighter skinned than some other Mesoamericans.

Egret Woman must have seen the approval of the spirits to have a partner with a name, Maix, so close to the name of her own people, Manik. The oral tradition of the Manik resides with the woman and the Olmec and Lenca people may be filled with Manik stories. Where the other Mayan groups had hostile relations with the Manik, the Olmec and Lenca likely had much better relations. They were probably encouraged to select the island closest to the Manik and the Xibalbha cave, Lago Olomeka is about 60 kilometers south of the cave.

What links the Olmec to Lago Olomega and the Lenca? The first is the reference in the Popol Vuh to the "Oloman" (Tedlock, pg 149), the first half a clear reference to the Olmec. The last syllable "man" is a link to the Manik and to the Lenca who are known as the managuara. Man appears to have the meaning of hand. In Ch'orti' man means exchange or trade, an action which could be linked to the hands. Ma'nah means "work for hire" which also could come from a root of man = 'hand'. Later the Popol Vuh makes a second reference:

"When we divided, there at Tulan, at Zuyua ... And again, some of the people stayed there in the east; Sovereign Oloman is their name. 'We left them behind,' they said. It was a great weight on their hearts." (Tedlock, pg. 162)

This clearly places Oloman in the east, within the region of Tulan Zuyua, Isla Tigre, which has been the region of the Lenca for more than 10,000 years. Thus, the link of the Oloman with the Lenca and with the Olmecs.

Isla Olomeguita, Lago Olomega

The second thing linking the Olmecs to this region and specifically Lago Olomega is the two names appear to have the same origin. In Lenca the 'g' sound transformed from the 'k' sound and it likely happened rather recently. Previously the lake and island (above) would have been known as Olomeca or Olomeka. This is so close to Olmec. And previously we saw that the Popol Vuh referred to them as Oloman, rather than Olman, offering a clue that "Olo" is the original prefix, not "Ol". The Ulua name likely comes directly from Olo - the "o's" transformed into "u's" - "Olo" to "Ulua". This transformation happened probably soon after the Ulua moved (and perhaps the Olmecs) from the Olomega area to the north coast of Honduras in about 2000 BCE, including the site of Travesia.

Here is my attempt to construct the meaning of Olomeka (and Olmec). I believe that "Olo" is a transmutation from the proto Chorti "Teo", which meant "island." This most comes from "Olo" being associated with the island on Lake Olomega, called "Olomeguita". This could indicate that the lake was named after the island rather than the other way around. In addition, when the four lineages left Isla Tigre they went to four islands where they would be safe from the Xibalbhans who were afraid of water. These four islands were all named with the prefix 'teo': Teotipa, Teopan, Teoakan, and Teomeka. Mek'e means to "embrace, wrestle, carry in one's arms or on the hip." This could have been a reference of carrying children to the island on one's hip or in one's arms. One might be able to wade over to Estrechura Island like this but it would only work to Olomeguita Island when the lake level is really low. Teomeke is a beautiful name - island of the embrace or carry in one's arms to the island. Perhaps the Olmec were honoring Teomeka - Olomega - when they built La Venta on an island.

The Olmec likely called themselves Lenca before they left for Mexico. But it may have been a slight variation. I believe that Lenca comes from Lumkah, which means "land from the beginning." I have heard modern-day Lenca say something similar, "We have been on that land from the start." The permutation is simple: Lumkah to Lemkah to Lenkah. This is supported by the Lempa River which would have been Lumpa before it became Lempa, with credit given to the Lenca.

A little tour of the islands. A view from Olomeguita to the rest of the lake:

Drying fish, an old practice on Olomeguita (right). There are 17 families on Olomeguita and they say people have always lived there. Half of the island consists of the houses, packed tight, and a school. The other half of the island is a large hill planted with corn. Every family owns at least one boat.

The school on Olomeguita. It is likely that children have learned and played on Olomeguita for over 10,000 years.

The southern part of Estrechura Island to the right and hills beyond the southern lakeshore in the background. Estrechura may be close enough to the lakeshore to wade across.

On Estrechura island there is a curious rock with three sides carved with various figures. It is carved in the same style as Igualtepec at Lago Guija, linking the two sites. The locals call this rock the "devil's rock" for the carving at the left. Unfortunately it has been chalked and painted which can make it hard to tell what is the original carving. The two sets of arms could be what makes the carving devil-like. This does recall the story of the Xibalbhan who arrived on Isla Tigre with a surf-raft tied to this waist that made him look like a bat. Is this rock carving placed here because of a similar visit by the Xibalbhans to this island? Or is it to simply retell that story to future generations?

Here is one of the sides of the same stone. The most interesting aspect of this carving is that the figure on the top appears to be sitting on a circle or a wheel. This may be another retelling of history, although I am not aware of any Popol Vuh stories that speak of a wheel, cart, or chariot. One would need more specialized tools to discern the original carving and then begin to interpret it.

Finally, here is the third side of the Estrechura carved stone. This side resembles the Igualtepec carvings the most.

There is one nearby geographic feature that appears to indicate a high level of technology among the Olmecs before they moved to Mexico - the many apparently human-made lakes and lagoons. There are two scattered lagoons to the west of Olomega - Laguna Jocotal to the west, south of Chaparristique volcano, and Laguna Aramuaca toward San Miguel. To the east about 12 kilometers are a series of four named lagoons: Managuara, Maguique, Pilon, and Negritos, and two smaller ones.

Laguna Jocotal is the largest of the lagoons, perhaps 1-2 kilometers wide and 3-4 kilometers in length. The formation of the lake is clear from the name: (in Ch'orti' Maya)

Hok'ot - excavated, hollowed outTal - arrival, place

So Jocotal means "hollowed out place", implying hollowed out by people.

The meaning of Aramuaca is not so clear but appears to include spiders.

Managuara means "pellets in erect (land) (form) weak current pond." Laguna Managuara is another place that the Maya (Lenca/Olmek) practiced with gunpowder (pellets). The high bank on the southeast side of Laguna Negritos was blasted out and an opening was created to extend the lagoon to form the new Laguna Managuara. Because of the importance of the name Managuara, this was probably the first lagoon created by the Lenca/Olmek.

Laguna Maquigüe also has a revealing name: Maquigüe - mak ik' wehr - "rip the above-surface plugging up." Like Managuara they were testing gunpowder. Perhaps in this case they attempted to open up the lagoon. Maybe the smaller lagoon to the south of Maquigüe is the result.

The Olmek/Lenca practiced on the lagoons, using gunpowder blasts to break open the lagoons, in some cases creating smaller neighboring lagoons. The lagoons were likely practiced on at the same time as gunpowder testing in central and northern La Union, which was about 7650 BCE.

Literary support for the lagoon building works of the Olmec/Lenca comes from the wife's name of the Olmec founder Maix. This is actually the second wife name for Maix and should be thought of as the feminine side of the lineage or even attributes of the lineage in general. The name is Tz'ununija, translated at Water Hummingbird by Tedlock, meaning Green Kingfisher. I most agree with Tedlock but would say Water Hummingbird Beak:

tu'u' - siptz'unun - hummingbirdni' - beakha' - water

The motion of the beak of the kingfisher diving into the water provides a visual for the tools and movement of the Olmec and Lenca as they dug out the lagoons.

04/05/2010

Teotihuacán: founded by the Quiché, Olmec and Zapotec. It was the double island city. Teo meant island in that day’s Quiché Maya. Tihuacán is a Zapotec word and refers to what was originally Teokan, or island of learning. The name Tihuacán is similar to the city of Tehuacán, Puebla, founded by a sister people of the Zapotecs, most likely the Otomi. And it is similar to the Zapotec-named Tehuantepec isthmus. A further namesake, founded by other Zapotec cousins, is the site of Tiahuanaco, in Bolivia.

The original Zapotec island, Teokan, was located at the present-day island of Monte Cristo at the mouth of the Rio Lempa in El Salvador. Over thousands of years, the name Teokan evolved into Tihuacán, as evidenced by the nearby Tehuacán site about ten miles north of Monte Cristo. Monte Cristo and the Bajo Lempa were the home of the pre-Zapotecs before they moved to the Oaxaca Valley.

In summary, Teotihuacán is the double island city because it takes its name from two islands in El Salvador: Teokan or Monte Cristo and Teopan, the Quiché island inside of Tammakchan (now called Lago Coatepeque).

Between 200 CE (Common Era) and 650 CE Teotihuacán was one of the largest cities in the world, peaking at perhaps 200,000 people. While its founders may have been Quiché, Olmec and Zapotec, by 500 CE a new language was spoken there, Nahuatl. By the end of Teotihuacán in 700 CE, a new people, the Toltecs, was formed. They were mostly Quiche, but also contained some of the other two founding nations and also tribes from northern Mexico who were attracted by the great city.

Teotihuacán maintained close ties with the Olomeka (Olmec) Gulf Coast, the Oaxaca Valley at Monte Alban, and with the Quiche-Pocomam city of Kaminaljuyu. In addition, other Quiche settlements were made along the Pacific Coast of Guatemala and these maintained close ties with Teotihuacán. Especially close ties were maintained with the Ch’orti sites of Chalchuapa and San Andres, at least up until the Ilopango eruption of 200-250 CE, and with the Olomeka-Lenca sites of Tehuacán and Quelepa in central and eastern El Salvador.

03/14/2010

The Quiche Mayas were forced to leave El Salvador in about 2300 BC and by 2000 BC the Ch'orti Mayas at Lago Güija and Lago Coatepeque were anxious to expand beyond their El Salvador home. The Ch'ortis, like the neighboring Lencas and Tehuacanos (Zapotecs), had been sailing the Pacific Ocean for over a thousand years.

But an Atlantic ocean base was needed in order to better explore the four corners of the world. The Ch'ortis had been trading with local people in northern Belize already and it was an easy decision to send an expansion group north to the Corozal Bay, to the site known as Santa Rita. A few hundred years later they sent a much larger expansion group north which began to build the El Mirador site and soon many other sites in the area. Those who went north mixed with the local population and soon the Yucatec or Maya language began to develop. [Click to enlarge the map.]

The Lencas based at Lago Olomega in southeast El Salvador had the same need. They simply went straight north and followed the Ulua River to the coast. There they founded the site of Travesia and from that base explored the Atlantic Ocean extensively. This was the beginning of separation of the El Salvador Lenca language and Honduran Lenca language.

The Atlantic Ocean currents would naturally carry the Ch'orti and Lenca rafts and reed boats north and east around Cuba and then northeast into the North Atlantic. Then a southward current would take them close to the Spanish or West Africa coast. The current from West Africa would take them directly back to Travesia or Santa Rita.

A significant group of Lencas moved about 250 kilometers west to the Mexico-Guatemala border region. Here they founded sites that came to be known as Izapa, Paso de la Amada, La Blanca, Ocos, and El Mesak. A few hundred years later Lencas from Travesia, Olomega, and the Izapa region moved to the Gulf coast area of Veracruz, Mexico, and founded the Olmec civilization. They took with them the name of Olomega (Olomeka) and much of what they learned in their travels of both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The Tehuacanos, like the Lencas, trace lineage to Balam Akbar. They lived on one of the four original Mesoamerican island civilizations, Teocan, at the mouth of the Lempa River. One of the double meanings of Teocan is 'island of wild vegetation' or 'monte'. Anyone who has spent much time in that region, the Bajo Lempa, can understand why it would be called that. The 'Monte' descriptor in Spanish becomes a trace clue in guessing where they moved to. It appears they moved from Isla Montecristo to Monte Alto in southeast Guatemala, and soon would move to the
Oaxaca Valley of Mexico to found San José Mogote and Monte Alban. There they would become known
as the Zapotecs.

While all the expansion continued, the base of operations for the Mayas continued to be western El Salvador at the two new sites of Chalchuapa and San Andrés.

03/03/2010

There were four original leaders of the Mesoamerican people: Balam Akbar, Balam Ik, Balam K'itze, and Sutz’ Masa Manix. The first three are named Balam or Jaguar since they led their band or family out from the jaguar room of the cave, La Gruta del Espíritu Santo in northeast El Salvador. One family came out of the Sutz’ or bat room. There were also two other families that came out of the bat room, the Tams and Ilocs, but they decided not to join the proto Mayan religion, which was to worship the three gods that gave three gifts essential for survival and to communicate with the being at the center of the universe.

It is time to discuss the lineage of the first four leaders. When they left Isla Tigre, where they first formulated their religion, they went to four islands. Going to the most distant island, Teotipa in the middle of Lago Güija, was Balam K'itze. From Balam K'itze came most of the Mayan tribes, including the Ch’olan, Ch’orti’, Tzeltalan, Q’anjobalan, the Huasteca, and the Yucatec.

The leader of the four was Masa Manix, who first envisioned domesticating plants from the wild edible plants that were all around. Because he was the leader, the band of Masa Manix was allowed to go to the most beautiful island, Teopan in Lago Coatepeque, which they called Tammakchan, 'deep inside the rainbow.’ This is the leader of the Quiche Maya, and this lineage also includes the Kakchikels, Mameans, Q’eqchi’, and Poqom. The people of Lago Guija and Lago Coatepeque related to each other on a continual basis and their language did not vary for thousands of years.

Balam Ik and his band went to an island at the mouth of the Lempa River. At that time, which was about 8000 BC using the Mars long-count calendar, the ocean was nearly 100 meters lower than it is now. The mouth of the river was likely several miles beyond where it is today. Given the nearby very early archaeological site of Tehuacán, this island seems to have been called Teokan, Island of Learning. The Teokanos immediately began studying the ocean and soon became adept at sailing, first using dug-out canoes along the shore, and later constructing balsam rafts from the plentiful balsam trees in present-day La Libertad. The Popol Vuh says that "their (the whippoorwills) mouths gape to this day", which I take to mean a reference to the sails used by the inhabitants of Teokan.

The Popol Vuh says that Balam Ik had no children. I believe this is a metaphor for the village being destroyed, such as in a flood. There is one flood event as determined by scientists: the flood of ~6400 BC, when most of the water of Lake Agassiz swept into the oceans in a matter of hours. It is estimated that Lake Agassiz had more cubic gallons of water than all current fresh water lakes combined. Is it possible that the Teokanos saw the tsunami wave coming, jumped on their rafts with some water and food, and survived? Unlikely, but … we’ll explore that more later on.

The fourth original leader of the civilized people was Balam Akbar, or Night Jaguar. Balam Akbar’s band stayed in the east, making the other three bands sad. They settled on the third Salvadoran lake with an island, with the island called Teomeka, present-day Olomega. The name most likely comes from mek’e, which means ‘embrace’, ‘wrestle’, or ‘carry on one’s hip’. So Teomeka means ‘embrace island’. It was the island, surrounded by water, which kept the Teomekanos safe. Because this band was so distant from the two Mayans bands in far western El Salvador, its language, now called Potón Lenca, began to differentiate at that early date. Eventually the word for island, ‘teo’, was changed to ‘olo’. Their island home then became known as Olomeka. From the band that stayed at Olomeka come the Lencas, the Uluas, and the Olmecs.

The four bands had regular gatherings, called conacastes by the Mayans and guanacastes by the Olomekanos. It meant, 'gathering of brothers.' The guanaco was the ‘brotherhood’. Even to this day Salvadorans are called 'guanacos' – ‘bros’. We would call such a gathering, 'council meeting' (with a little bit of Burning Man added in). Likely the four islands took turns hosting the guanacastes, usually held under the large trees that also became known as 'guanacastes'. Everybody would go to the guanacastes. There was much trading, talking, singing, drinking chicha, and dancing. The guanacastes also served another purpose – to have the young people from different islands intermarry to foster close relations between islands and to keep a strong gene pool. Unless the boy was in line to become leader of his island, the boys went to live with the girl’s family, in some cases learning a new language.

There were also very special guanacastes every 15 or 17 years when the planet Mars was nearing its retrograde time close to the center point of the galaxy. The shamans and astronomers of each island would gather and talk for days on end in preparation for these events. The purpose was to determine if the first sign of Mars' backward motion would happen on a new date on the Mars retrograde calendar.

After the flood event of about 6400 BC, which wiped out the civilized village of Teokan, the site sat empty for a while. But there was unease: the band on Teotipa at Lago Güija were on one of the sources, the navel, of the Lempa River, and someone else needed to be at the mouth of the river.

After several years or maybe a few generations so the memory of the flood had faded, a decision was made to re-occupy the mouth of the river. Most likely the new settlement was formed from Lago Olemeka - they were closest to the Lempa mouth. Again the settlement was called Teokan. The language of this new band also began to vary from both the Olomekanos and the proto-Mayans. They began to call their island, Tehuakan.

Global warming continued in this period and the oceans continued to rise – perhaps by as much as several inches per year between 6200 BC and 5600 BC. The Tehuakanos became very tired of having to relocate their village and their gardens every 20 or 30 years. The community split in two: one group stayed, but the other group went far away, and perhaps they were allowed to leave only if they went far away. They moved nearly 900 miles northwest onto the Mexican high plateau. They took the name Tehuakan with them, as well as their seed stock, and settled in the valley now called Tehuacán in the state of Puebla. Most likely this is the language group called the Oto-Pamean and includes the Otomi, Mazahua, Chinantecan, Chorotega, and Subtiava people, among others.

The ones who stayed continued to relocate while the ocean rose until 5000 BC, when it reached its current level, more or less. At that time the Tehuakanos "del mar" relocated to an island that was then, as now, at the mouth of the Rio Lempa, Isla Montecristo. From their base at Montecristo the Tehuakanos became extremely adept at sailing in the ocean on balsa rafts as well as on reed boats, using the reeds along the Torola River and elsewhere.

The Tehuakanos began sailing throughout the Pacific Ocean, exploring the Central and South American shoreline. One thing became clear very quickly: while Central America had slack currents that required great effort and patience to get anywhere, the South American coast had powerful currents that would take one out into the broad expanse of the Pacific. It was this quest to know the world that caused the Tehuakanos to split once again. In about 3500 BC, one group of Tehuakanos moved from Montecristo, El Salvador, to Sechin Bajo, Peru, not far from the coast, bringing with them corn, squash, cotton, and other plants, as well knowledge of working with stone. Later they built the Caral site, along the ocean, and then on the Altiplano the city on Isla del Sol in Lago Titicaca, remembering the importance of islands to their cosmology. They also build the city of Tiwanaku (or Tiahuanaco), giving their name to the site, although by then their pronunciation of the name changed once again. They also shared another name, calling one of the large mountain animals of the altiplano, the "guanaco."

The Tehuakanos who stayed at Montecristo played with other names for their island, including Tehu ak kin, which means 'island of blades of grass,' since the area of coastal San Vicente is amazing for the amount of vegetation or monte that grows very quickly. This is likely where the 'monte' portion of the name Montecristo came from and this name carried over to other places that they moved to, such as Monte Alto and Monte Alban. They also used the name Tehu k’anan, which means ‘island of plenty’ and Tehu k’ana’n, which means ‘island of golden ripe maize’.

At about 1800 BC it seems that Tehuacan moved, perhaps in its entirety, first to the Guatemalan coast, to the site of Monte Alto, and soon to the valley of Oaxaca, not far from the long lost cousins. This people became the Zapotecs. At some later point the Mixtecas split off from the Zapotecs. The Isthmus of Tehuantepec shares the Tehuakano name. Another place that bears the Tehuakano name is perhaps the most spectacular and again shows that the Tehuakano-Zapotecs were some of the best stone workers the world has ever seen, Teotihuacán, the ‘tihuacan’ portion of the name coming from the Zapotecs.

Another of the Mesoamerican peoples joined the Zapotecs in founding Teotihuacán, but they came from the west not the east.